Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Cabrera's distinctive marine and terrestrial flora and fauna are really what makes it important, many species being endemic to the Balearic Islands and a number being found only in the archipelago of Cabrera. Though geologically a continuation of Majorca's Sierra de Levante, Cabrera has been isolated from the "mainland" for around twelve thousand years, quite long enough for evolution to make its mark. While the number of endemic species of all kinds is remarkable, it is Cabrera's birdlife that really puts it on the naturalist's map.

Cabrera's marine environments are various, from the shallows around the islands to the waters in between, where depths of 120 metres are seen. The littoral areas down to a depth of around 40 metres are largely covered by meadows of Posidonia oceanica, Neptune grass or posidonia, not a seaweed but an underwater flowering plant, endemic to the Mediterranean and a protected species, as much because of its crucial role in this marine ecosystem as for its own sake.

Further out, the sea around Cabrera is deep and little disturbed by shipping, making it an "excellent breeding ground for turtles, dolphins, sperm and pilot whales, the carnivorous Goby fish, massive fan mussels (some reaching one metre in length) and a colourful array of corrals." Scuba divers will probably be filled with enthusiasm by that kind of description, though personally I am not sure which I would be less keen to come face-to-face with, a carniverous Goby fish or a metre-long mussel. Actually, I think this refers to Pinna nobilis, the pen shell, also called sea-wing or wing-shell, a kind of mother-of-pearl, though needless to say you should not open them up, however hopefully. It is a Mediterranean mollusc which has been heavily threatened by trawling in the past, and holds a place in biological history for its classification by Linnaeus.

The archipelago's flora is in most ways typically Mediterranean. The most common vegetation is la garriga, as this kind of thick scrubland made up of woody, small-leaved shrubs like mastic and wild olive is called locally. It can be so dense as to be impenetrable. The only fully fledged tree found on Cabrera is the Aleppo pine, of which there are extensive woods, associated with juniper and aromatic plants like rosemary. In windy coastal areas, hemispherical "cushions" of spiny legumes are typical. In areas near seabird colonies (see below), the accumulation of nitrogen-enriching guano (or, if you prefer, birdshit) favours the growth of something called tree-mallow (Lavatera arborea), another thing called tree medick (Medicago arborea, subsp. citrina) which is apparently in danger of extinction, and Beta vulgaris, beet.

All told, going on for 500 species of vascular plant have been observed in the archipelago (and remember we are talking about an area of not much more than 13 square kilometres). Seventeen of these are endemic to the Balearic Islands or even Cabrera itself, including Rubia angustifolia, Paeonia cambessedessi, and Astragalus balearicus, milk vetch.

In terms of invertebrates, Cabrera has an entire endemic genus of gastropod, Iberellus. Indeed, endemic slugs and snails abound, as do beetles and a spider called threateningly Nemesia brauni. All told, twenty-two species of Balearic-endemic invertebrate, including eight found only in the archipelago. The most curious are a number of endemic crustaceans found in underground lakes, including, again, an entire Cabrera-endemic genus.

Reptiles are found on both land or sea, though there are no breeding populations of the loggerhead turtles which commonly visit the area. On land, the population of Podarcis lilfordi, Lilford's wall lizard or Balearic lizard, is considered particularly important, being around eighty percent of those existing in the world. It is only exaggerating a little to say that its ten sub-species nearly amount to one per island, a splendid illustration of Darwinian divergence.

Cabrera's birdlife is remarkable (in addition to being a national park, the archipelago is classified as a ZEPA, area of special protection for birds). Unsurprisingly, seabirds are the most important group, including Audouin's gull, yellow-legged gull, Cory's shearwater, Balearic shearwater, European shag and hundreds of pairs of storm petrels. Although "the resources cannot support a great number of animals," and "the food chains are fairly simple with few predators," Cabrera's birds of prey include osprey, peregrine falcon and the rare Eleonara's falcon, which seems like quite enough predators to me.

Cabrera was probably the monk seal's last Spanish Mediterranean refuge, but sadly it has not been seen since the sixties and is now considered extinct here as well. But a plan exists to reintroduce the monk seal in Cabrera, one of the very few places in the Spanish Mediterranean where this is thought feasible.