On the Trail of the Monk Seal: The History of a Possible Coexistence

To narrate the ups and downs of the history of the seal also means to narrate the history of our sea. A history marked by periods of exploitation and domination, by episodes of degradation and destruction, but also by opportunities for resilience and hope. The knowledge that seals, carnivorous mammals that can weigh up to three quintals and are perfectly adapted to life in the liquid element, still manage to survive next to some of the best-known and most crowded tourist resorts in the Mare Nostrum, arouses the same wonder one felt as a child leafing through illustrated natural history books. With our commitment and our images, we dream of asking people to slow down for a moment and finally pay attention to the beauty, complexity and inescapability of nature and, in this case, of a sea that is not just a holiday destination or the scene of the dramas of modernity, but a real hotspot of biodiversity of global importance.

Editor’s note: This text as well as the following ones are excerpts from the photographic book “Out of the Blue — The Monk Seal in the Mediterranean” by Marco Colombo, Bruno D’Amicis and Ugo Mellone, cofounders of the collective The Wild Line.

Virtually invisible to the gaze of most people, these animals move carefully in the twilight hours, abandoning the safety of their sea caves when they feel secure. It happens in a handful of lucky and secret places, between the Ionian, Aegean and more eastern areas, at certain times of the day. There, it is still possible to experience the thrill of seeing, all of a sudden, the water ripple and a large, round, shiny head, two lively eyes and a snout adorned with long whiskers emerge, to observe their surroundings with curiosity.

“The Mediterranean monk seal is the rarest seal species in the world and the most endangered marine mammal in Europe. Today the estimated population consists of approximately 800 individuals in total, of which about 400 live in the Mediterranean Basin,” writes Aliki Panou, a conservationist and monk seal expert from the Greek non-governmental organization Archipelagos, in the photo book.

Its former distribution range extended throughout the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Atlantic coasts of northwestern Africa including the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores, she adds. Homer describes vast herds of seals lying on the beaches, while Proteus, a sea god, would come out of the sea daily to count them in groups.

Today, however, these charming animals have disappeared from extensive regions of their former range. About half of the remaining world population lives in Greek waters along with smaller populations in Turkey and Cyprus.