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Sussex Wildlife Trust
Sussex Wildlife Trust COMMON SEAL Here be monsters
Legend has it that it’s been visiting Lewes for years. There have been sightings from Southease all the way up to Barcombe. In January, John glimpsed it vanishing into the murky waters of the River Ouse near Tesco. A few months later, Barry was on his way to work when he encountered the creature hauled out on a pontoon by the Cuilfail cliffs. You’ll find 38 species of wild mammal living in or around Lewes. Badgers, foxes, stoats, weasels, shrews, rabbits, hares, moles, voles, dormice, bats, rats, hedgehogs, mice and mink all form the mammalian fauna of a landlocked South Downs town. Yet there’s one salty surprise on the list – the Common Seal, an animal that’s typically found in Britain’s coastal waters 12 kilometres away.
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And the seal’s certainly a surprise to any Lewes residents who, while innocently strolling along the
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Ouse, encounter their local leviathan. I’ve never seen the legendary beast myself but have received plenty of excited tweets, emails and mobile phone photos from amazed observers who can’t believe what they’ve seen. Throughout history, sailors (without the benefit of smartphones and a Twitter account) have confused seals for mermaids and sea serpents and, as Sussex mammals go, this seal is a real monster.
Common Seals can weigh up to 150kg; twice the weight of a Fallow Deer, the second-biggest wild mammal in this area (and 50,000 times heavier than the smallest; the Pygmy Shrew). As you’d imagine, on land this blubbery behemoth is about as agile as Peter Ustinov trapped in a sleeping bag but underwater they’re as balletic as Baryshnikov, gracefully swimming at speeds of up to 25 mph as they hunt fish, shellfish, squid and octopus.
It’s this quest for food that occasionally leads seals into Sussex rivers such as the Ouse and the Arun as they follow fish migrating upstream. Common Seals breed in Sussex, where there is a colony at Chichester Harbour. It’s a sink or swim situation for seal pups born on the sandbanks exposed during the low tides of summer. Their aquatic life starts as the next high tide rolls in and within hours of their birth they’re swimming in the Solent alongside their mother. Mother’s milk helps them to double their birth weight in just a few weeks. The name ‘common’ is a bit of a misnomer. In British waters you’re three times more likely to see their larger, Romannosed relative the Grey Seal. The patterns on each seal’s fur are as individual as fingerprints. Keep an eye out when you’re next walking by along a Sussex riverbank and see if a seal is giving the river its approval.
Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Trust
Photo: Common Seal ©Hugh Clark FRPS Sussex Wildlife Trust;
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