Experts celebrate the remarkable recovery of incredibly rare sea creature: 'We had a really pleasant surprise'

The Mediterranean monk seal is making a big comeback, thanks to the hard work of one nonprofit.

"This year, we had a really pleasant surprise," said Panagiotis Dendrinos, marine biologist with the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal (or MOm), per the Independent.

The surprise was that a female that the group had rescued four years ago was spotted nursing a pup. About 800 monk seals currently live in Greek waters, which amounts to roughly half of the global population.

Once upon a time, these clever hunters would chew through nets to steal the bounty of fishermen. This led to a wave of hunting that nearly wiped out the Mediterranean monk seal between the 1960s and 1980s. Dendrinos described the species as "one of the rarest species of seal and marine mammal in the world."

MOm has become a focal point for rescue and rehabilitation of the species' tenuous population. It has worked hard to transport monk seals in danger to their treatment center, feed calves until they've reached appropriate weight, and train them for hunting with as little human exposure as possible.

This regimen is aimed at producing the best possible outcomes when the animals are re-released into the wild. Release areas are chosen for their seclusion so that the monk seals are less likely to have their survival compromised by human activity.

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While hunting was a primary cause for population decline in the case of the monk seal, there are a wide range of challenges for marine life. Intense boat traffic can disorient animals enough to disrupt their feeding and reproduction behavior, on top of the risk of direct impacts. Increasing surface level temperatures can dramatically change the ability of animals to survive. Ocean acidification due to the absorption of carbon dioxide plays a factor as well.

MOm's ability to bring the monk seal status down from threatened to vulnerable is a testament to the effectiveness of advocacy and protection, but it takes a broad scope and a lot of work.

"To protect an animal like the Mediterranean monk seal in its natural environment, you essentially have to protect the entire marine ecosystem," said Dendrinos per the Independent.

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