The aches and pains of a wintry moulting period

This is a tough time of year for the Grey Seals around our coast. At their most sensitive, moulting season, when blood vessels are active close to the surface of their skin, supporting the growth of a new fur coat, the seals have to brave a multitude of threats in their ocean environment, as well as a few self imposed ones! All the seals featured here were hauled out on one beach on one day!

This young male seal has a bleeding tail, most probably from being bitten by another seal. At this time of year, young adolescent male seals are testing older and stronger males, weakened by the rigors of a long breeding season. Their challenges are often met with impatience at their impudence and a swift bite to their tails, as the younger seals realise the error of their ways and turn away for a swift retreat! Numerous possibilities exist causing pink mucus around a seal's nose and mouth. A small amount of blood goes a long way and could come from haemoraging anywhere along the nose, throat or lung passages, possibly the result of infection.

Bleeding tail (Left) : Bloody mucus (Right)

Seals face threats from human activities too, that have unintended outcomes for the seals. Over 50 seals in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have been observed with netting entangled around their necks, abdomens, or shawled around their whole body. Seals are extremely curious creatures and are often seen exploring and playing with floating rafts of discarded or storm damaged net. As the netted seal grows, the net cuts evermore deeply into the seal, creating horrific wounds with which the seal must live. The multiple curved scars on this mature female's back look like they could have been caused by a boat propeller, creating a cheese grater effect, as the blades rotate round as they cross the seal's back, making multiple cuts.

Net entanglement around neck (Left) : Multiple curved back scars (Right)

Other injuries are caused by the seals themselves. Seals have very long claws that help them to grip as they move over rough rocks covered in slippery seaweed. Turned on themselves, claws make excellent body scratchers, but used too roughly, they can break through the skin, causing a minor bleed. Often further scratching results in the blood being spread across the seal in large arcs limited by the mobility of the seal's fore flipper! Seals have no external ear flaps,so it is possible for a scratching claw to catch in an ear hole, causing a small rip and associated bleed.

Bleeding head wound (Left) : Bleeding ear (Right)

Other injuries can be much harder to explain. From one angle, this young seal's eye looked perfectly normal, but as the seal turned its head and looked up and to the right, it became obvious that something unpleasant had happened to its cornea, probably limiting the seal's sight in its left eye. Other seals have much larger patches of damaged skin, the origin of which is unclear. This seal is one of two that appear to have damaged large areas of skin around their throats and either side of it, the healing of which may be hampered by localised immunosuppression.

Eye injury (Left) : Throat wound (Right)

Most females are coming to the end of their annual moulting period, whilst the peak of the male moulting season is upon us. We can expect the seals to continue looking rather scraggy and below par for a few weeks to come. As their old fur coat is lost to reveal their pristine new fur coat beneath, we can expect a much healthier appearance to our seals over the coming months.