Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, Spain’s 'wolf boy', dies at 80
Lived 12 years in the wild after being sold as a child; found in 1965 and later settled in Ourense.
Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, the man commonly known as Spain’s “wolf boy,” has died. He passed away on Saturday, 15 August, at the age of 80. Born in 1946 in the Andalusian village of Añora, his childhood and later life attracted international attention because of the years he spent living outside human society.
From a remote valley to the headlines
Rodríguez’s early years were marked by poverty and mistreatment. When he was six years old his father sold him to a goatherd who left him in an isolated valley to tend livestock alongside an elderly shepherd, who taught him how to survive in the mountains. After the shepherd’s death, Rodríguez remained alone and over time learned to live with the wild as his community.
He lived without regular human contact for roughly 12 years. Rodríguez developed his own ways of communicating and imitated animal sounds — from birdsong to the calls of deer — and later said he felt able to interact with foxes, wolves and even snakes. He also said he earned the trust of a wolf pack by feeding their pups and that the animals warned him of danger.
Describing how he hunted, Rodríguez told his interviewer: "If I wanted fish, I went to the river and fished. If I wanted a rabbit, I would catch a rabbit. If I wanted a deer, I would call my parents, the wolves, I would howl, hide in the river, and the wolves would drive the animals down towards me."
The Civil Guard found Rodríguez in 1965, when he was 19. Returning to life among people proved difficult and prolonged; Rodríguez later said that his suffering began after he was discovered and forced to reintegrate. In subsequent years he lived in Jaén with a priest, in Madrid with nuns, completed military service and eventually moved to Mallorca to work in hotels and restaurants.
Anthropologist Gabriel Janer Manila conducted months of interviews with Rodríguez for an academic study at the University of Palma between November 1975 and April 1976 and later published his findings in a book titled "I Played with Wolves." In 2010 a television crew visited Rodríguez in Añora; recalling his time in the mountains for the cameras he said: "I was very well. I didn't know what money was, but I always had enough to eat."
From 2001 Rodríguez lived in the village of Rante in the province of Ourense. The municipal government of San Cibrao das Viñas paid tribute on social media, writing that "Marcos came to Rante with a story that the whole world knew. He leaves behind a story that became ours too." According to local reports, he died during a festival held in honour of the town’s patron saint.
Photo: Skrinshot
