Ex-hurricane Ophelia rumbled up the Irish Sea on 16th October leaving a trail of wildlife destruction in her wake. A good friend of mine once told me at the start of my career 'death and destruction is all around you on seabird islands - get used to it!' - and so it has proved. Yesterday, however, it wasn't our seabirds that were suffering, it was our grey seal pups.
As forecast we were subjected to 80mph gusts - not unheard of in these parts occasionally but the accompanying swell heights were unlike anything we've see in 12 years on Ramsey. 8.5m swell is truly exceptional and caused devastation on the seal pupping beaches around the island.
Ramsey is the largest pupping site for grey seals in south west Britain with between 500-700 pups born between August and November each year and 2017 was turning out to be a productive season. While good numbers will already have successfully weaned and left the island there were still 120 white coated pups (that's any pup under 3 weeks of age) present on our last 'pre storm' count on 14th October
It was too rough for us to go anywhere other than above the harbour yesterday but this site, as anyone who has visited the island in the past few weeks will know, had 4 pups on it, plus another 6 on the beach on the south side of the harbour. All we could do was watch helplessly as the rising tide coincided with the peak of the storm and turned the harbour into a boiling mess.
How any seal pups could withstand the scenes above was beyond us and what should have been an awe inspiring day watching the power of nature on our doorstep was tinged with a feeling of helplessness as the plaintive cries of desperate pups drifted on the wind. Cows could be seen valiantly trying to stay with their pups all the while preventing them from drifting too far out but at the same time keeping them away from the pounding surf on the beach. It was exhausting to watch as this battle rolled on for hours and well beyond sunset.
The day after the storm dawned clear and bright with only a moderate breeze, the sea was relatively calm once more and it was hard to believe the scenes we had witnessed just 12 hours earlier. My first task was to check the harbour beach. Surely nothing had survived? I was wrong! Two out of the four harbour pups were still alive. There was only one cow present but the second pup was quite old and near to weaning anyway. It is remarkable that anything survived the onslaught of the previous day and it has certainly given me a new found respect for these amazing animals.
Born survivor! This pup survived the photos above with only a slightly bloody nose to show for it
Super mum! This cow had stayed with her pup throughout the storm and brought it safely back to the beach for a well earned feed and rest
The initial encouraging signs were short lived however. The six pups on the south side of the harbour were down to one and worse was to come when we set off to carry out a full census.
From 120 seal pups on our nine study beaches (these sites accounting for roughly half of all pups born on Ramsey) three days earlier, today saw only 31 remaining and a lot of these appear to have been orphaned with the cows taking the decision to save themselves and abandoning. Some will be old enough to take care of themselves but for many that simply won't be the case.
A familiar scene today - dead seal pups littered the beaches providing carrion for ravens and gulls
Porth Lleuog had 17 pups on it 3 days ago - today just 5 remained
The graph above shows that the peak number of grey seal pups at any one time was just over 200 on day 60 (around the last week of September). From then it is normal for numbers to gradually drop off as the season winds down. However the dramatic drop off after Ophelia is clear to see and represents a 75% loss of pups
On the one hand we've seen some remarkable feats of survival by tiny pups being tossed around on boiling seas but Ophelia has been brutal and had a devastating impact on this years pup survival rates. Grey seals are long lived creatures however and populations can tolerate the occasional bad year. They battle on despite the mess we have made of our oceans through over fishing and pollution so let's just hope storms such as these remain the exception and don't become the rule.....(stop press: I spoke too soon. Another major storm is now forecast for this Saturday.....)
A short video giving an idea of what the harbour was like yesterday. The footage was not taken at the height of the storm as it was too dangerous to be outside (plus the camera would have been covered in salt spray in seconds!)