Grey Seal - World Ocean Day 2022

Where do we live? We live in the North Atlantic Ocean we are the biggest land mammal that can be found in the UK. Our Bodies?  We are like you we are warm- blooded we can control our body heat with our blubber you humans call it fat. But we don’t have hands or legs like you, we have flippers they help us swim in the sea faster than you! We also have a tail which helps us control where we end up. We also can hold our breaths for long periods of time not like you our skin is thicker than yours too. But we cannot breathe under water, we need to resurface every 5-10 minutes, but we can stay there for 20 minutes. 

We have large eyes that help us see underwater not like you humans we don’t like plants we only eat meat we like fish, crabs, eels and squid. To eat our food, we need to tear it open using our teeth and powerful jaws. 

Facts 

• When we are babies, we are white but when we are older, we turn a grey or black colour. Boys are always bigger than Girls.
• We can only live to 25-35 years old. You humans can live longer than us. 
• We often sleep in the water with our noses above the water so we can breathe. We must hunt for our food in the sea and we sometimes must search days before we find any food.
• We have a huge family, and we add to our family during September to December. We can grow taller than most humans 10feet and weigh a lot more 880 pounds. 

How you can help us! 

You can help us by recycling as plastic and rubbish can cause us bad injures and sometimes death. Stop oil and petrol being poured in the ocean as the oil and petrol can harm us, using less petrol as it can cause the temperature to rise, and some animals can die from slight temperature changes and no litter as it can travel to the sea where I am swimming and can cause me harm. 

Photo credit: Grey seals, Shaun Gillard