Tuesday 9 October 2012

Open day seal pup star doing well.


Seal pups are appearing across the island over the last few days. Rona is becoming a no go zone with pups, cows and bulls dotted across the isle. The musty, foxy smell of the bulls is especially strong and can give you a warning that just around the corner is a big bull.
As I headed over to Rona today I had a look at the pup that starred in the Seal Open Day back on 23rd Sept. having been born the day before. It has been transformed from a wriggling little white bag of fluff weighting only about 15kg to a great blob, weighing nearer 40kg that spends much of its time guddling about in the pool. Its mother's high fat milk has enable it to put on the kilos (about 2 kgs a day) which is a good things as seeing as it is 17 days old  and in the next few days its mother will abandon it to fend for itself.  The cow herself will have hardly have feed for the time she was feeding her pup so she looks a little deflated and may have lost up to a 1/4 of her weight.  Before she heads back out to sea she will mate with the male that has been hanging around her pool.
We know from all the research carried out on the island that pup mortality on the Isle of May is very high so it is good to see this pup getting a good start to life.

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