text: Bleak future for Mediterranean mammals - Fethiye Times
  Home XPAT Culture Bleak future for Mediterranean mammals
  The latest assessment of Mediterranean mammals shows that one in six is threatened with extinction at a regional level, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ including the locally found Monk Seal.
  The Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus), pictured above, found in the waters around Fethiye is on the Critically Endangered list with fewer than 600 individuals currently surviving. The IUCN World Conservation Congress, held in Barcelona last October, called for international action to preserve their natural habitats.
  Agriculture affects 65 percent of threatened mammals, hunting and trapping 60 percent, and invasive species 50 percent.
  Overall, more than one-quarter (27 percent) of Mediterranean mammals have declining populations, 31 percent are stable, while for a further 40 percent the population trend is unknown.
  Only three percent of species populations are increasing, often due to conservation action, according to the study.
  Mammal biodiversity is greatest in mountainous parts of the region, with particularly high concentrations of threatened species found in the mountains of Turkey, the Levant, and north-west Africa.
  Although the Sahara has relatively low species richness, a high proportion of Saharan species are threatened.
  "To ensure the survival of large herbivore and carnivore mammals in the Mediterranean, we have to restore habitats and food chains," says Helen Temple, co-author of the study.
  "We need to encourage people to accept large predators, improve protected areas management and better enforce laws regarding hunting practices."