Further to Greg’s last blog entry about the early start to the seal pupping season, I now have some figures to back up our observations.
Each year we follow the progress of pups born on 9 beaches around the island, basically sites that we can safely view from the cliff top. These beaches only account for around 50% of the total pups born on the island each year, the other half are born in Ramsey’s sea caves, where we have very little chance of seeing the pups inside.
However, the beach sites do give us an indication of pup production and the timing of the pupping season, which we can compare from year to year.
On 26 August last year, we had just five pups on our study beaches, whereas this year we already have a total of 21 as at the same date. It will now be interesting to see how the rest of the season pans out and whether the peak of pups born, which is usually around the third week in September, will be any earlier this year.
Our latest arrivals have already had to cope with the biggest tide of the year and the tail end of hurricane Bill, with no major casualties to report, so we could be on for a bumper year.
Remember, the island is open until the end of October and is the ideal place to get close up views of Atlantic Grey seals and their offspring.