Monk Seal Returns to the Gulf of Naples: Sightings from Massa Lubrense to Ischia

It has the silent and ancient pace of a legendary return, the monk seal that for a few weeks has been moving up the Gulf of Naples like a ghost of the Mediterranean. Spotted for the first time on April 25 in the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area, then again in Capri on May 1 and 10 and finally in the Kingdom of Neptune, in Ischia, on May 12, the seal was also immortalized in a video while hunting a moray eel in the waters of Ischia: a powerful moment, which moved scientists and citizens.

The Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) and the two marine protected areas of the Gulf of Naples are already at work. Together, they participate in the European project Life Sea Net, coordinated by Legambiente, for the protection of Natura2000 sites: a network of protected areas that now once again hosts one of the rarest marine mammals on the planet.

Environmental DNA samples have already been collected at the sighting points and the appeal of the institutions is clear: report, but do not disturb. No pursuit, no approaching less than 50 meters, silence and respect for the animal. A solitary presence, almost certainly always the same specimen, that moves between the coasts of the Sorrento peninsula and the islands of the gulf, offering research a rare and precious opportunity.

Monk Seal, Extinction Seemed Certain a Century Ago

A century ago its extinction seemed certain. Norman Douglas wrote about it in 1911, in his “Siren Land”, prophesying the end of the “sea ox, good monster”. In Capri, the following year, a seal was photographed and killed on the beach, considered the last. Sightings became rarer until they disappeared completely after the Second World War, surviving only in the oral memory of the oldest fishermen. Until 2023, when a first video shot between Capri and Punta Campanella rekindled hope.

Today that hope has a real face, and it asks for protection. ISPRA, Punta Campanella and Regno di Nettuno are calling on everyone — fishermen, divers, boaters, residents — for discreet surveillance, an active citizenry that chooses to be on the side of nature. Even through apps, like the one from the Life Sea Net project, you can help monitor the seal’s movements and offer researchers crucial data for its protection.

A population of less than a thousand specimens in the world, exterminated in the past centuries by man and now back swimming, free, in the heart of a Mediterranean wounded but not yet surrendered. If the sea has welcomed her back, it is our job to make sure she doesn't leave. Again.