Ocean Sentry
Palma (EFE) .- A diver from Palma de Mallorca, saw a monk seal in the Isla del Toro (Calvià) marine reserve , which was believed extinct animal from the waters of the Balearic Islands since the 50″s.
The encounter with the specimen, just over two meters in length, “light-colored almost white” and with the characteristics of the species the monk seal, occurred last Sunday at noon unexpectedly.
The diver, a veteran expert on the Del Toro reserve, was spending a recreational scuba diving day with a group of friends when they encountered the sea mammal, which can be estimated about 500 specimens around the world .
Most of them can be seen in the colony of Cape Blanco (called the Coast of Seals, Mauritania), and others in the Aegean Sea, coast of Sahara and Madeira.
The sighting on Sunday in Del Toro occurred at the end of a dive, when the diver saw “something big in the cave which is located on the west side of the island” and headed towards there “to check what it was”.
“As we entered into the cave, a small cavity about three meters deep, I saw something white and I thought it would be some kind of whale or sperm whale stranded or sick because he was quiet, upright, with the tail towards seabed” Garí reported.
