Why is the seal population in Norfolk’s Blakeney Point growing so quickly?

ITV News Reporter Sangita Lal reports from Blakeney Point where seals have found the perfect place to call home

A handful of seals were born in Blakeney Point, Norfolk, in the 1980’s, but since then the population has exploded to the thousands with more expected.

National Trust ranger Carl Brooker told ITV News it was like a bonus every year, and “incredible” to see the population growing.

“It’s absolutely incredible that we can see it growing and growing every year, because a lot of the time, particularly, if you read in the papers, a lot of it is doom and gloom - ‘we’ve lost this and we’ve lost that’ - but you come to Blakeney Point and we’re gaining wildlife every year”, he said.

The landscape of the nature reserve in the east of the country is the main reason for the large number of seals.

No predators hunting the seals, plenty of food in the North Sea and little human disturbance, make it a perfect place for the seals to call home.

And the population is only expected to grow, as come the end of the year, the number of seal pups is expected to rise from 69 to a huge 4,500.

If that happens, it’ll be the highest number of seal pups recorded in England.

While this might be a success story for the animal once hunted by humans, we still pose a threat to the seals in a different way.

Human-induced climate change has already seen huge floods cause the death of many seal pups, with things not looking set to improve.

“If we get too many of these high seas and too much of these things happening in the winter, we are going to lose Blakeney Point”, Mr Brooker said.

“It’s just a thing that we need to be most wary of. At the moment, we’re lucky and we’ve got loads of seals here, but it is a fragile environment”, he warned.

Conservationists have also warned that this habitat must be protected for the families of seals at Blakeney Point to keep living a peaceful life.