Sometimes sea bears enter the lagoon and cause great loss of fish. As they try to leave there for the open sea, great nets are stretched for them across the straits through which they have to pass. When they see themselves caught by them and attacked by the fishermen, they mount a surprising resistance. While they are trapped within the bay they often go along the shore letting themselves be seen without any fear, showing by certain actions they make that they understand everything that is said to them. And because I have never found myself present to witness such a thing, I scarcely allowed myself to be persuaded that a fish could understand what is said to it.

~ Mauro Orbini, 1601. Il Regno degli Slavi (quoted in Brusina 1889).

For some time I was undecided whether I should write down my observations, since the animal has already been on show around Germany for a year. But then I concluded that it could do no harm if there were several descriptions and illustrations of such a beautiful and rare animal.

On this occasion I was astonished, as I have been so many times before, about the impudence of certain people, and how they judge things that they do not understand. One of the spectators announced with great confidence that it is a Sea-pig, another that it is a tuna, and yet another that he had eaten of its flesh and that it tastes like salmon, and that one often catches them in rivers: probably he meant the sturgeon. But what astonished me the most, and probably annoyed me as well, was how so many people who presumably have eyes in their heads were all speaking of the seal as a fish.

~ Johann Hermann, 1779.

Its aspect is mild, and its disposition not fierce; its eyes are quick and indicate intelligence, or, at any event, they express the sentiments of affection and attachment to its master, whom it obeys with the utmost readiness.

~ Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, 1782.

During this month [December 1886] Mr. Henry L. Ward, of Rochester, son of Professor Henry A. Ward, the well-known ‘museum builder,’ visited the three little keys off the northwest coast of Yucatan known as the Triangles, for the express purpose of securing specimens of this rare animal [the Caribbean monk seal]… Forty-nine Seals were killed, forty-two of which were taken away, but one of them was afterward lost…

~ J. A. Allen [American Museum of Natural History, describing how some of the last Caribbean monk seals fell victim to museum collectors], 1890.

The pleasant animal quite enjoyed listening to the music of the bells and singing, but the real show started when playing on the harmonica was introduced in the experiment. Mr. Predic played softly and quietly different melodies. The monk seal raised its head from the water and started listening with curiosity and attentiveness. Afterwards, it lowered its head and closed its large and beautiful eyes occasionally, and almost fell asleep. This was repeated several times and all people present were impressed by this and convinced that the monk seal has an affinity for music. The entire experiment lasted 15 minutes. Mr. Predic had the appearance of an animal tamer. This experience was touching and magnificent and I will remember it for the rest of my life.

~ M. Katunaric (quoted in Zupanovic 1966).

My father must have killed 15-20 sea-bears [monk seals], I suppose. I remember there were plenty of seals around here then [in the 1930s]. First they killed the animal, then removed the skin from the body to let it dry and then cut the skin accordingly to produce “Çarik”. It was impossible to find shoes in those times so we had to wear Çarik. Our father used to provide us with Çarik made from ox skin because Çarik made from sea-bear skin was smelling [bad]. But we knew very well that Çarik from sea-bear skin was very strong compared to that from ox skin and also it was very good for rheumatism. My father used to sell or barter the sea-bear Çarik to the mountain villagers…

~ Melahat Ural, interviewed in the Black Sea village of Gideros by Cem O. Kiraç.

But the best, and the most ludicrous, record is that of an old female Monk Seal whose stuffed skin and skeleton now lie alongside one another in the Fishery Laboratory in Alexandria. She was taken about ten years ago by fishermen in Port Said, who sent her in a box alive to Alexandria, where she quickly died, probably as a result of an extraordinary change of environment. The fishermen were convinced, a proof of the present rareness of the Monk Seal in the region, that this animal was a solitary wanderer from high northern latitudes. She therefore suffered the fate of being crammed alive into a box and sent by train closely packed in ice.

~ G.C.L. Bertram.

In freedom the monks prove to be of a perfectly sociable character. One of my friends, passionate amateur underwater hunter M. Delais, of the l’Office de le Recherche scientifique d’outre-mer, was swimming in their company and was but the object of an astonishing sympathy and a remarkable diving demonstration.

~ E. Postel.

The first of these “strange fishes” came out of the sea to a small beach where it was observed to have “whiskers like a man” and heard to “cry like a woman” when poked with a stick. Its eventual fate is not known, but it seems unlikely that it would survive the chastisement to which it was obviously subjected. The second specimen also attracted its crowd of curious onlookers. Fearing that it might be dangerous, it was destroyed by a home-made bomb.

~ W.J.T. Norris, relating how monk seals appeared in the harbour of Tobruk, Libya, in the early 1960s.

The following measures are recommended: …To point out to governments that Monk Seals are an important but now only a potential natural resource. Managed properly the seal could become a permanent source of skins, meat and oil.

~ A. van Wijngaarden, in a report to IUCN.

Loss of habitat must be the candidate for the main cause of decline… Monk seals may have originally bred on open beaches, and their present habit of breeding in caves may simply be a retreat from the greater and greater encroachment by Homo sapiens. Several speakers at Rhodes questioned the suitability of caves as a monk seal habitat. It seems that grey seals that breed in caves produce fewer pups than those which use open beaches. For them, caves are a marginal habitat, mainly because they are flooded during storms and pups are easily drowned or separated from their mothers.

~ S. Anderson.

The tameness of unmolested seals to man could become a hazard if reserves are set up in close proximity to intensively exploited fishing grounds. A system of buffer zones is envisaged, possibly with compensation to fishers for damage to their nets in such areas as the price of allowing the seals to be unhunted. In such buffer areas, it is possible that some income could be obtained by fishermen serving as guides to visitors, which would offset to some extent the cost of payments to fishermen. Where unmolested the species should achieve its very remarkable degree of tameness and give pleasure to many people.

~ David Sergeant, Keith Ronald, Jean Boulva, & Fikret Berkes.

“[They] trained the seals with the purpose of using them to spy for the Turks.”

~ Police Chief Theophilus Drumpis, Samos, Greece, referring to IUCN/WWF Project 1697 and quoted in the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

The owners of the [Seitani, Samos] bungalows paid one and a half million drachmas in fines but the buildings were never demolished. And, as if this were not enough, the construction of a new road consummated the ecological disaster: rocks and sand fell into the sea, destroying the eggs of the seal, while the continuous dynamite explosions chased the seals away from their refuges.

~ Greek illustrated magazine, Tachydromos, 1980.

In modern times the Caribbean monk seal has shown, and the Mediterranean and Hawaiian monk seals are showing, that inability to adapt leads to extinction. Mankind need not feel responsible for something that began 8 million years ago, but along the western coast of Africa from Casablanca nearly to Dakar and in the Leeward Islands of Hawaii, because they were unable to adapt, are living fossils comparable to the last of the dinosaurs surviving in the remains of a forgotten environment.

~ C.A. Repenning.

Coastal grapevine owners in Algeria claim that the seal will climb to the grapevines at night to eat the grapes, where grapevines are often grown close to the seashore.

~ J. Boulva.

The parties to the Barcelona Convention included among their priority targets to be achieved by 1995 the protection of the Mediterranean monk seal.

~ UNEP/MAP, Action Plan for the Management of the Mediterranean Monk Seal.

[In these] six years of monk seal conservation we have had some interesting cases of interplay between man and seal, although we had not provoked the situations. On the 19th January 1990, when returning to the station in kayaks after a seal survey, we were surprised by loud roarings inside one cave at Furadinho [the Desertas Islands, Madeira], and suddenly a seal pup came to us swimming and barking, followed by the angry mother, that, holding the pup by the neck, took it inside the cave while roaring. A minute later the pup repeated the scene, and this time even tried to climb onto one kayak, which got the mother still more upset; in fact the adult came to us and [snarled] aggressively and took the pup again to the cave. The situation was repeated again and we decided to leave the area, noticing that the pup always came to the yellow kayak and not to the blue ones.

~ Henrique Costa Neves.

“If we don’t get the seals it will be the end of this species. Let’s take advantage of the facilities at Antibes [Marineland]. Negative results could give us more valuable results than positive ones.”

~ A. Manche, quoted in Johnson, W.M. 1988.

Today, the enemy of monk seals is not only the fishermen, but all those who invade and ruin their habitats… Finally, I wonder where we should put the monk seals that have been removed from their natural habitat, and are being kept in some aquarium, if they happen to have success in reproduction – what shall we do with these poor creatures whose habitats have already been almost completely ruined? Why are we trying to breed them in captivity instead of trying to help them to breed in their own natural, undisturbed habitats, where they are still leading a natural life today?

~ Bahtiye Mursaloglu.

On 19 November, the Bellerive Foundation and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), in association with the French environmental group Robin des Bois, took court action against the French Ministry of Environment and its decision to allow the importation of up to 7 monk seals by Antibes Marineland. The animals were to have been caught in caves just north of the Mauritanian border, in an operation spearheaded by British celebrity vet David Taylor. According to Marineland and the French Ministry of Environment, the seals would be used in an experimental captive breeding project. But the Bellerive/WSPA application for an injunction against the import asserts that there is no scientific support for Marineland’s plan, and that the transaction is motivated by commercial interests.

~ William M. Johnson, Bellerive Foundation Action Alert Newsflash, 6 December 1990.

In terms of behaviour, contrary to past reports, pups were observed to enter the sea within the shelters during the first week of life, even in the absence of their mother, while pups were observed to leave their shelter and swim in the vicinity alone in the second week of life… During the study, 11 pups were found to have changed shelters during their development and travel distances of several hundred meters at the age of two or three months old. On one occasion, a 10 day old pup was observed to have moved into a adjacent shelter covering a distance of at least 1500 meters.

~ P. Dendrinos, S. Kotomatas & E. Tounta.

The largest population of the rare Mediterranean monk seal is in the western Sahara colony at Cap Blanc. The mean numbers in the period 1993-1996 were estimated as 317 individuals and the population was thought to be stationary or changing at a very low rate. In the spring of 1997 a severe mass mortality reduced the numbers by 70%, compromising the recovery of the species in the Atlantic.

~ Jaume Forcada, Roger Pradel, Manel Gazo & Alex Aguilar, 1999.

Having read the earlier section on the management bureaucracy, one anonymous reviewer was moved to comment specifically on the “ponderous Byzantine, complicated bureaucracy that oversees actions relating to the Hawaiian monk seal… This specter,” the reviewer continued, “left me with the feeling that there was no hope for saving the monk seal from extinction… [a] conclusion [that] should be obvious to all readers.”

~ David M. Lavigne,1999.

… tourism continues to play a fundamental role in the final eradication of the monk seal, and even poses a serious threat in the protected areas that are at last being established for the species. Monk seals are still being harassed in their caves by tourists and speed boats. Elsewhere, monk seal habitat is being turned into coastal development strips dominated by resort complexes. As far as anyone can see, the beaches of the Mediterranean are still littered with plastic, and polluted with oil and tar. Incredibly, seals have even been speargunned by snorkelling tourists – no doubt a magnificent trophy to human stupidity.

~ Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.

The rate at which the monk seal populations are declining now precludes any notion of priority in the choice of protection measures. The only hope of saving the species resides in a strategy of an “attack on all fronts,” involving simultaneous use of all possible means.

~ Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA), insisting that captive breeding programmes be pursued despite overwhelming scientific opposition.