Yulia the endangered seal draws an audience in Tel Aviv

Monk seal may be one of only 350 adults in the wild

An endangered monk seal has taken up temporary residence on a Tel Aviv beach, attracting crowds of curious onlookers.

The seal cow, named Yulia by locals, first appeared south of Tel Aviv's main beachfront last Friday. Listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, she is as one of as few as 350 adults estimated to exist in the wild.

The monk seal's populations have dwindled due to historic seal hunting, fishing and habitat destruction.

Mediterranean monk seals are believed to survive only in a handful of places in the Mediterranean Sea and are rarely spotted on Israel’s shores.

Israel’s Nature and Park Authority has fenced off the section of beach where Yulia has come ashore to rest, and posted volunteers to monitor the animal from a distance.

Still, the seal's appearance is a sensation.

“This is a very rare event that a monk seal stays for such a long time on the shore,” Aviad Scheinin, a marine biologist from University of Haifa, told the Associated Press.

Yulia is moulting, a multi-day process of shedding her winter coat, he explained, during which time she has been resting on the shore and taken occasional excursions out to sea.

Ms Scheinin said fellow researchers from around the eastern Mediterranean have spotted Yulia in Turkey and Lebanon in recent years. She is estimated to be about 20 years old.

“I’ve been researching marine mammals for 20 years. This is the first time that I'm actually seeing such a thing, and I can hardly sleep at night because of that,” he said.