Seal killing
| 12 |
| Mar |
| 2010 |
Another grisly addition to the discussion on bull seals killing pups. While doing a seal survey on Skomer last year David Boyle photographed a bull seal killing a pup on two separate occasions. Not only did he witness a bull apparently drowning a pup, he saw it take a huge chunk out of the newly moulted pup's neck. This is apparently the first time that this sort of behaviour has been photographed. If you want to check out the evidence there are photographs on the Western Telegraph site.
Boyle notes that bulls can be 'very fierce', particularly during the breeding season, and that it 'reminds us that seals are wild and unpredictable creatures'. Mercifully this sort of behaviour, gruesome and distressing from the human perspective, is clearly not the norm. Naturalists locally are discussing the issue but as yet no-one has any clear idea as to why bulls might attack pups other than the 'wrong place at the wrong time' theory where a pup might get in the way of a testosterone-fuelled bull.
