Monk seal lunch

Our first day of work in the Gulf of Evia did not have dolphins to offer, but an amazing and unexpected encounter with a monk seal who was having lunch at the surface. The seal had a large octopus in his mouth and he was forcefully and repeatedly shaking it with the head out of the water, producing splashes that could be seen from far away. We speculated he intended to kill the octopus before eating it. We approached at slow speed up to about 50 m to observe this unusual behaviour, and the monk seal did not appear disturbed. He finished his lunch, gazed at us, then moved away. We managed to capture some phases of the octopus lunch, but most photos were blurry due to the distance, except for the one shown here, which even when magnified was sharp enough to capture the fierce look of this large and critically endangered marine mammal.

Giovanni Bearzi