Bull seal kills pup?
| 21 |
| Sep |
| 2009 |
The debate about seals killing other seals rumbles on. Interestingly (but not necessarily significantly) so far we've only heard of bull seals being accused of 'murderous' and 'cannabilistic' behaviour. The latest news is from the Skomer Island blog:
'The Seal pup that was born a few days ago was seen swimming up and down the coast of North Haven, looking for its Mum. It then struck out for the middle of the Bay...
What happened next stunned us all.
A bull seal came up by the pup and grabbed it by its rear flippers, then dragged it underwater for a few seconds. Both of them came back up and the pup called and struggled. The Bull got a better grip and with a vicious flick of its head was back under water and neither of them were seen again.
We are all a bit stumped and have not really heard of this kind of thing before.....was the Bull intentionally killing the pup......was he playing with it........did he think it was some food....? It is hard to say what instinct he was reacting to. This bull (called 'Marbled Bull' due to his markings) has held territory on this beach for the last two years, so there is even a chance that this was his own offspring!'
It would have been interesting to see when and where the bull surfaced and what he was doing. So far no-one seems to have seen a bull seal definitely killing a pup but what was witnessed on Skomer is puzzling. Seals are tough creatures and from a human perspective not very gentle with each other but as the blog points out it's difficult to work out quite which instinct was at play here. We've seen bulls get fed up with pups and treat them pretty roughly but we've also seen them being surprisingly tolerant (generally when they're shattered!) No doubt if we watch them long enough they'll provide more surprises.
