There has been a record number of baby seal sightings on a five-mile stretch on the coast of Norfolk, United Kingdom with a total of 3,796 seal pups born so far this winter, while 1,169 adults have been spotted by volunteers, according to the Guardian.
Those numbers are almost double the counts from 2019-2020, where 2,069 pups were counted.
“It is a sign of a healthy colony” Peter Ansell, the chair of Friends of Horsey Seals said. “It’s down to the fish. At the moment the North Sea is providing enough fish for thousands of seals and this is a nice place for them to come ashore and do their breeding.”
Roughly half of the world’s population of grey seals live around the British coastline and Norfolk is considered an important breeding area, with the seal population between Waxham and Winterton being a major tourist attraction annually.
“They are very popular with visitors, which is funny because they don’t really do anything. They come ashore and flop down and every few hours the pup nudges the mum for a feed,” Ansell added.
