Thousands of grey seal pups counted at coastal breeding ground
Share:
More than 3,200 grey seal pups were born along a section of the Norfolk coast this season – slightly fewer than last year and possibly due to them finding new breeding grounds elsewhere. The Friends of Horsey Seals group, which monitors the colony along the five-mile stretch between Waxham and Winterton, counted 3,246 pups there this season.
While numbers remain high, this year’s final count was 370 less than last year. Peter Ansell, chairman of Friends of Horsey Seals, said: “We don’t know where the seals go. “My personal opinion is it gets so crowded down there for them when they’re giving birth, I think perhaps some of them now have found other places to go.
“For instance there’s a small colony started up at Orford Ness (on the Suffolk coast) which is not too far from us. “It may be some of our lot decided to go down there. “It could also be, purely theoretical this one, Scroby Sands (a sandbank more than a mile off the coast of Great Yarmouth).
“If Scroby Sands is above the water, they may be out there in perfect peace and quiet – ideal place for them.”. He said he did not think the reduction in the number of seal pups counted at Horsey was “anything significant”, adding: “I don’t place a lot of worry about the figures at the moment.”.
