Selfish selfies kill seal pups
I AM not very good at taking selfies. I always have an expression like I am surprised that someone is taking my picture - and it’s me.
My other ‘look’ is one of deep concentration as I try to get my head into the picture. I just look daft.
Other daft selfies in the news have been taken by people wanting to be pictured with seal pups down south.
It might be cute to have your picture taken with a fluffy, white baby seal but you could be doing great harm by making that seal’s mum abandon it.
What a lovely way to treat a beautiful animal – pretty much condemning it to death.
Getting too close to seals is dangerous – it causes great anxieties in the animals and puts you at risk because they might bite you.
One act of this sort of stupidity is the woman who thought she had found a seal pup on a beach, abandoned by its mother. The woman picked up the pup and put it into the boot of her car and drove it to a local animal welfare charity.
The staff at the charity were horrified and amazed this do-gooder still had eight fingers and two thumbs.
Fortunately, you have to travel some distance to see seal pups in the north west. Head off up the M6, turn left after Morecambe and go right past Barrowin-Furness. You are still four or five miles from our big seal colony at the south of Walney Island.
At the moment there are hundreds of grey seals there and a couple of pups have arrived over the past few years. There are excellent hides to watch the seals and you can take as many pictures as you like from there.
You will not be disappointed by the grey seals, which can grow to three metres-long during a lifespan of a possible 30-40 years. They feed on fish and rest on rocky shores in large colonies.
The fluffy pups are born between October and December. They remain on land until they have moulted those white coasts and treble their birth weight. Once they get to that stage they head off to sea to hunt for themselves.
With a grey coat, darker blotches and spots, the grey seal has a sloping ‘Roman nose’.
Many of you may feel that the Irish Sea and Walney Island are too far away to worry about, but this is the north-west’s sea and our seals. This summer we will be pushing for more Marine Conservation Zones to protect wildlife like seals in the Irish Sea. We will need your support and we promise to keep you informed about our beautiful seal pups.