Curiosity - the clever killer

Recently a report has been written about our net entangled seals. Figures about the number of seals who suffer from being entangled in nets around the country are scarce and our data shows a surprisingly high incidence - about 8% over 5 years. In fact there were 6 net entangled seals out of 55 on the haul out beach on Saturday. It is simply assumed that the seals become entangled whilst eating fish from commercial nets, but this is not necessarily the case. This weekend large amounts of discarded or storm damaged net and other human debris was seen floating in the sea around the headland. Seals are curious creatures and often play with this debris with potentially fatal results. They are fascinated by new objects they come across and tend to explore with their mouths - their 'arms' and 'hands' (front flippers) being shorter, less flexible and less sensitive than ours. As a result, debris so easily gets wrapped around their heads and they have no way of extracting themselves. So the net of fixed length remains in place. If the seal is small with plenty of growing still to do, the net becomes an ever tightening noose leading to a slow death. Larger seals are less likely to die from being entangled in net unless their wound becomes infected. Often raw flesh is visible around net entanglement injuries, but seals can, and do, survive for many years despite this. Seals suffering from an encounter with net carelessly discarded into the sea is surely unnecessary. (All the photographs on this page were taken on 26th Februrary 2005.)

Floating net (Far left photo) : Net on the seal beach (Mid left photo) : Seal plays with glove (Mid right photo) : Other debris (Far right photo)

2 small male and female seals with net tight around their necks (photos below)

2 large male seals with net around their necks (2 left photos) : 2 large male seals with rings of net around their bodies (2 right photos)