Ras Nouadhibou

A monk seal colony on Ras Nouadhibou in 1945

1958 map, showing what was then called Cap Blanc, divided between Spain and France

Ras Nouadhibou (Arabic: رأس نواذيبو‎) is a 40-mile peninsula or headland in the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean by the Tropic of Cancer. It is internationally known as Cap Blanc in French or Cabo Blanco in Spanish (both meaning "White Cape").

In the 14th and 15th century, Spain began to develop interest in the desertic coast of what is today called Western Sahara as a result of fishing activities carried out from the nearby Canary Islands by Spanish fishers.

Cabo Blanco, in the Atlantic Ocean, is the only place in the world having a monk seal colony. However, since 1997, the colony's viability has been threatened.

Location

This thin stretch of land is divided between Mauritania and Morocco. On the western side, lies the ghost town of La Guera; on the eastern side, less than a mile from the border, lies Mauritania's Nouadhibou (formerly Port Etienne).

History

Portuguese sailing explorers first reached the Portuguese language named Cabo Branco in 1441. The Spanish interest in Western Africa in desertic coast of Sahara was the result of fishing activities carried out from the Canary Islands by Spanish fishers. Spanish fishers were seal fur traders and hunters.They were fishing and whaling in Sahara coast from Dakhla to Ras Nouadhibou from 1500 to present, extending by West coast of Africa to whaling humpback whales and whale calves, mostly in Cape Verde, and Guinea gulf in Annobon, São Tomé and Príncipe islands just to 1940. These fishing activities have had a negative impact on wildlife causing the disappearance or endangered of many species, it highlighting marine mammals and birds.^[1][2]

The Spanish originally claimed the land from 20° 51' N (near Cap Blanc) to 26° 8' N (near Cape Bojador) in 1885. This would be a protectorate governed from the Canary Islands in 1887. France would later claim the Western Sahara. The boundary was settled in a joint French-Spanish convention in 1900 to divide the area between Spanish Sahara and French West Africa.^[3] However, the western side is currently under Mauritanian control, as neither Morocco nor the Polisario Front is de facto in possession.

A lighthouse was constructed on the cape in 1910.

Monk seals

The earless seal's Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) former range extended throughout the Northwest Atlantic Africa, Mediterranean and Black Sea, coastlines, including all offshore islands of the Mediterranean, and into the Atlantic and its islands: Canary, Madeira, Ilhas desertas, Porto Santo... as far west as the Azores. Vagrants could be found as far south as Gambia and the Cape Verde islands, and as far north as continental Portugal and Atlantic France.^[4] Today,the. cape hosts the largest surviving single population of the species, and the only remaining site which still seems to preserve a colony structure.^[4] In the summer of 1997, two-thirds of its seal population were wiped out within two months, extremely compromising the species' viable population. While opinions on the precise causes of this epidemic remain divided (the most likely cause being a morbilivirus or, more likely, a toxic algae bloom,^[4]) the mass die-off emphasized the precarious status of a species already regarded as critically endangered throughout its range.

While still far below the early 1997 count, numbers in this all-important location have started a slow-paced recovery ever since. Currently, the population in this location is estimated at 150 individuals, down from some 310 in 1997, but still the largest single colony by far. The threat of a similar incident that could wipe out the entire population remains.^[5]

References

Coordinates: 20°46′17″N 17°2′50″W / 20.77139°N 17.04722°W / 20.77139; -17.04722