Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, the Spanish man raised by wolves, dies aged 80

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, a man who was raised by wolves in rural Spain, died at the age of 80 on Saturday, August 15 in Ourense. Rodríguez Pantoja, known as the Wolf Boy of Sierra Morena, is being remembered for his extraordinary upbringing, having spent his most formative years living among wild animals until he was 19 years old. He would later claim they were the happiest days of his life.

Stranded and alone in the wilderness at a young age

Rodríguez Pantoja, born in Añora, Cordoba, became stranded in the Sierra Morena mountain range in the province of Jaen while working as a goatherd in 1954. His mother passed away in childbirth when he was just 3 years old, and his abusive father left with another woman. The goatherd who was training him by teaching him to use fire, find food and water, and make tools, either died or suddenly left, leaving the young boy completely stranded and alone.

The mother wolf who adopted Rodríguez Pantoja into the pack

He would later explain that he survived by observing the animals in the mountains; namely, which berries and root vegetables they would eat. Eventually, he was discovered by a female wolf, who fed him and later adopted him into her pack.

“After feeding her pups, she threw me a piece of meat. I didn’t want to touch it because I thought she was going to attack me, but she was pushing the meat with her nose,” Rodríguez Pantoja told the BBC in an interview in 2013. He stated that he took the meat, ate it, and the female wolf approached him. He thought she was going to bite him, but she started to lick him instead. “After that, I was one of the family,” he said.

Living as an animal in the Spanish mountains: How Rodríguez Pantoja became half wolf

Extraordinarily, the wolves accepted him as one of their own, would feed him scraps of food, and would even sleep with him in caves.

“I was doing very well, and I didn’t know what money was, but I never lacked food,” he would tell TVE Informe Semanal in an interview in 2010. “If I wanted to fish, I fished in the river; if I wanted a rabbit, I caught it; if I wanted a deer, I called my parents who were the wolves, I let out a howl, I hid in the river and the wolves brought the cattle down to me.”

According to Rodríguez Pantoja, he also made friends with a snake, who followed him around because he would feed her goat’s milk.

A harrowing return to modern civilisation

In 1965, when he was 19, he was discovered by the Guardia Civil, roaming dressed partly in furs and barefoot, and communicating through grunts. He had enormous calluses on his feet. The Guardia Civil officers forcibly removed him from the mountains, as he howled and bit them. 

He was sent to an orphanage, where nuns taught him how to walk straight, eat at a table, and speak again. Rodríguez Pantoja would later state that returning to society after having spent 12 years in complete isolation from civilisation was the scariest experience of his life, as everyday occurrences like the sounds of cars, large crowds, and visiting a barber were completely new and terrifying.

Later, Rodríguez Pantoja was sent to Mallorca, where he lived and worked in a hostel, but he still struggled to integrate into society. He even preferred to sleep on the floor in a pile of blankets rather than a bed.

Eventually, he completed military service and ended up working as a shepherd and in the hospitality industry. In 2018, he would give an interview in which he stated he was disappointed in human nature and wished he could leave society. He attempted to return to the mountains and live among the wolves once more, but it had changed significantly; his cave was replaced with cottages and electric fences. The wolves would also no longer approach him.

“There are wolves, and if I call out to them, they are going to respond, but they are not going to approach me. I smell like people; I wear cologne,” he said.

Finding peace and community in his final years: The Wolf Boy, finally part of society

Rodríguez Pantoja’s extraordinary life became the subject of a Spanish film, Among Wolves (‘Entre lobos’), in 2010, directed by Gerardo Olivares, who would become Rodríguez Pantoja’s friend after stumbling across his story online.

At the end of his life, Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja was living as a resident of the village of Rante, in Ourense, and passed away with a loving community of friends and neighbours. More than 300 people attended his funeral.

“He was very loved, and I believe he lived happily in his last years,” filmmaker Olivares told Cordópolis. He stated that, in the end, Rodríguez Pantoja was finally able to adapt to society and live happily as a human.