Threats to our seals

“Our precious coastal wildlife is coming under increasing pressure. We need to be aware of the harm we can cause by getting to close to our seals and the tragic consequences when we do”

- Andy Ottaway, Seal Protection Action Group

Seals face an uncertain future with climate change altering ocean currents and prey availability while worsening storms and rising sea levels are affecting vital resting and breeding sites. Toxic pollutants continue to enter waterways and the ocean. A lethal cocktail of household and industrial chemicals concentrates in top predators through the food chain, attacking the nervous and reproductive systems of marine mammals like seals. Many of these toxins accumulate in body fat and are actually passed to the young through their mother’s milk so first pups often die! These toxins are so widespread they have been detected at dangerous levels in Antarctic seals.

Human over-fishing is seriously depleting fish stocks and food availability for seals while untold numbers of seals face an agonising death, entangled in fishing gear and other marine rubbish. If all these threats were not bad enough, commercial hunting, persecution, mass viral disease outbreaks, chronic disturbance from human activity both on land and sea, and increasing marine debris including micro-plastics are all taking a massive toll.