The seals of St Clement’s Island
If you have been on our trips and follow this page, you’ll know that we spend a lot of time collecting records and photos of the seals we find hauled out. Photos are then prepared and submitted to the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust, and volunteers spend a long time finding matches with seals seen in other parts of Cornwall (and sometimes further afield), as well as the number of times they are spotted at “our” site over the course of a season. This can shed some interesting light on the importance of the site for grey seals, and if there are any patterns in the behviours of individuals.
Seals are like people and dogs and cats – they are all different, they have their own characters, likes/dislikes, favourite/least favourite locations and even favourite/least favourite seals. We see individual seals who quite happily tolerate another individual snuggling up on the same rock, but woe betide if another less favoured seal tries the same thing.
This report has been compiled using our 2022 photos (obviously it’s a time consuming business) and contains some lovely bits of information about various individuals, including some stuff we didn’t know, including about Coral the one-eyed juvenile who spent the summer on the island after losing her eye. It’s also a little bittersweet, as it was the last year we saw our favourite old boy seal “Silverback” who we assume has now died. Dear old thing!
Have a read through