'Seal-sational' season for Skomer

The Wildlife Trust Skomer Team monitors progress each year and so far it has counted 7 seal pups.

Female seals produce a single pup each year and the new born pup will have a white or yellowy-white coat.

This is usually moulted after three weeks to reveal a short, velvety coat similar to that of the adults. The pup is suckled for two to three weeks and in this time it trebles its weight, putting on as much as 2kg in a single day.

The mother’s rich milk is over 50% fat which helps the pup build up its much needed reserves of blubber to insulate it from the cold seas.

Humans have probably hunted seals for as long as there have been seals to hunt and people to hunt them. They were mainly exploited for their oil, which was used as fuel for lamps, and their skins for clothing, harnesses and even shoes.

But the British population of grey seals was protected with the ‘1914 Grey Seals Act’ and further more in ‘The Conservation of Seals Act 1970’.

Since the end of persecution the seal population in Britain has been increasing and in 2015 Skomer Wardens recorded 240 pups born on the island, of which 178 survived till they were weaned.