Hub - Last of Mallorca’s Monk Seals: A Lost Mediterranean Legacy

66 years ago in April: In Cala Tuent, the Guardia Civil killed what was likely the last Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) on Mallorca. These marine mammals once populated the entire coasts and islands of the Mediterranean as part of a balanced ecosystem. This balance shifted with the territorial expansion of another predator: humans. As early as Homer, Plutarch, and Aristotle, the seal was mentioned in ancient writings. Its fur, fat, and meat were highly prized, and due to its trusting nature, the animal was easy to hunt. The fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century initially halted its early extinction in the western Mediterranean. Along Mallorca’s coasts, pirate raids discouraged human settlement for centuries, while the seals used these areas undisturbed as natural breeding grounds, and their colonies flourished. The end of piracy in the 19th century also marked the end of the monk seal colonies on Mallorca. Fishermen increasingly settled the coasts, and fishing became a thriving industry. The monk seal, which feeds exclusively on fish and mollusks, became a bitter enemy of the fishermen: it stole their easy catch and tore apart their fishing nets. The people of that time saw the seal as a pest that needed to be exterminated. Archduke Ludwig Salvator described their hunting by the islanders in 1870: “Let us consider seal hunting. Normally, you would encounter two, four, or five monk seals, swimming and playing in the water for a while, until one of them crawls onto the shore. At that moment, the hunter fires. Sometimes the animal dies instantly, but at other times it can escape into the sea; the hunter must be prepared for this and close the entrance to the cave with a strong net… the seal lifts its body out of the water, and at that moment the hunter shoots it again… They also catch the monk seal with a strong hook tied to a durable rope.”

On the North African coast and in the Greek Aegean, some colonies have survived to this day. On the Balearic Islands, however, the “Vellmarí” is considered extinct. All monk seals…? In 2008, a diver spotted one near El Toro in the southwest of Mallorca. However, marine biologists believe it was an African individual that had migrated.