ALONG the south west coast, this is the seal-pupping season.
Just before Christmas, neighbours phoned me to say that they had found a grey seal pup on a beach at the Seven Heads in west Cork.
The man who found it herded it back into the water, but it swam parallel to him as he continued his walk and then hauled itself out of the surf a few hundred yards farther along. With considerable agility, it crossed fifty yards of sand and fifty yards of sharp rocks and, by the time I came to see it, it had ensconced itself in a semi-circular niche at the base of an earthen cliff, a sheltered suntrap about as big as an armchair. There it lay, basking in the sun’s weak warmth, like a well-upholstered teenager in a wetsuit.
About four foot in length with a three foot girth — nearly as round as it was long — it had a rich, grey coat and every now and then would roll over or, endearingly, place its front flippers over its eyes or casually itch its nose with a flipper-tip. It was totally unconcerned by the proximity of the family who had found it standing close by, guarding it for fear a vicious dog might turn up or that it wouldn’t be able to find its way back to the sea. This seal, however, had no such problems. A strong, svelte animal, it could well have defended itself against a dog. It swam off on the next tide and wasn’t seen again on that shore.
A second juvenile Grey seal, half the size of the first, was found in a cottage garden at the end of Courtmacsherry village by a woman out walking with her children. It was an endearing creature, and the children were, of course intrigued by its smooth fur coat and large, soulful eyes. Concerned that it might be prey to a dog or unable to find its way under the garden railings back to the sea, the woman stood guard until, at last, it wriggled onto the sand and swam off down the channel. However, the following morning, her husband, walking the dog at 7.30am, found it farther down the beach.
This animal was plainly unwell. Its skin, instead of being stretched tight by layers of underlying blubber, hung in folds, and it was listless and unmoving. The finder managed to maneuver it into a fish box (brave man — the teeth can inflict a nasty wound!) and his wife drove it to Macroom where it was collected by a volunteer from a Seal Sanctuary in Dingle.
Fishermen and fish-farmers would not thank the rescuing couple for their efforts. They blame seals for damaging nets, for carrying fish parasites and for competing for the same fish stocks as man. Certainly grey seals are part of the life cycle of the cod worm which, supposedly, has infested some cod fisheries in Norway to the extent that they are no longer economic.
Grey seal pups have a hard rearing. The mothers haul up a few days before birth, generally in December, when storms may stop humans reaching their nurseries on remote coasts and rocky islands.
These same storms, however, endanger the pups when they are left to fend for themselves three weeks after birth.
Pups, with a birth-weight of 13 to 14kg, put on 2kg daily during the first week of life. In the course of the lactation period — about sixteen days — they will treble their birth weight, becoming tubby barrels weighing about 45kg (100lbs).
The mother’s milk is 60% fat, more cream than milk, and female greys lose 4kg a day, approximately 30,000 Kcal when lactating — to replace such a loss, a human would have to eat 70 cream buns daily. Their weight drops from about 170 kg to 65 kg in the two and a half weeks of breast-feeding. What were previously portly, well-padded animals become serpent-like creatures, with hip-bones showing.
At about three weeks, the pups lose their white fur, revealing the dark grey, silvery coat of adulthood. At this stage, the mothers close down the milk-bar, become sexually receptive, mate again, and leave the pups to fend for themselves. With no alternative but to hunt for their dinners, they disperse into the ocean. One in five fails to survive; some tagged pups have been found 125 miles from the rock where they were born.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, January 09, 2012
