First seal pup born at South Walney Nature Reserve

Despite seals using the protected beaches to haul out and rest at Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s South Walney Nature Reserve for decades, there has never before been a seal pup recorded on the island.

Sally Tapp, one of the two Marine Trainees who discovered the seal pup while conducting a seal survey, said:“This is an incredibly exciting and unusual sight as the colony at South Walney Nature Reserve has previously been thought to be a non-breeding colony. Usually, the seals found here are older bulls no longer able to control a harem on the breeding beaches and younger, sexually immature males and females, so this is a wonderfully encouraging sight showing that seals are thriving on Walney Island.

“The pup was approximately three to four days old when we first spotted it. The mother is likely to be an inexperienced, first-time Mum who regularly uses the beaches at South Walney as a haul-out site and has come back to pup here. Unlike harbour seal pups, grey seal pups are born with thick white fur and are not able to swim very well at first. Therefore,

the pup was almost certainly born on the island.”

During the 1970s and 80s seals were seen only singly around Walney Island and gradually over time their numbers have increased with up to 100 individuals now on and around the island at certain times of the year.

The mother will stay with the pup for only a short time, feeding it with fat-rich milk, until it is weaned and then she will leave both the pup and the area. During this time, the pup will gradually moult its thick white fur revealing its adult coat with its own individual markings.

After weaning, the pup may remain on the island for up to another few weeks or so before it is ready to head out to sea to forage for itself.

Grey seals have an annual, synchronous breeding cycle and females give birth in the autumn to a single pup at the same time each year. They usually return to their own place of birth to breed year on year in the same location. Towards the end of the weaning period the

seals will mate again.

Miss Tapp explains: “This is extremely exciting as this female may now choose to come back here to pup again next year and if the pup is a female, she too may pup here in the future. We could well be

seeing the establishment of a breeding colony on South Walney.”

Seal surveys have been carried out for five years, every two weeks between September and March, by Trainees from Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s Marine and Coastal Heritage Programme, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. The survey aims to continually monitor the seal population

structure in the area from year to year and the results are reported on by one of the Marine Trainees as part of their training to gain nature conservation skills. The trainees undertake a variety of on-the-job training and taught courses, gaining experience in organising and

delivering events and training to for scientific surveys and writing reports. The project aims to provide people with the skills to pursue a career in marine heritage – a specialised area of the environmental sector.

The behaviours displayed by the seals at South Walney Nature Reserve are also monitored to gain understanding about the percentage of time that seals spend exhibiting different types of behaviour and how this is affected by human disturbance such as boating and recreational use of the sea surrounding Walney Island. The findings from the survey help to

create management plans for the nature reserve.

Due to the young age of the seal, it is incredibly vulnerable to disturbance, which would cause the mother to abandon it and the pup to starve. For this reason, there is strictly no access to the area of the nature reserve where the seal pup is, and so it is not possible to view the pup at South Walney Nature Reserve. However, the rest of the

seals can be seen playing in the water at high tide, along with thousands of wintering wildfowl and wader birds, from hides elsewhere on the nature reserve.