From Jeremy Schmidt, Weddell seal population project multimedia specialist:
For a quick, light-hearted introduction, check out these five easy short pieces. A mother seal lying on the ice doesn’t look like one of the most amazing animals on Earth. She’s big, for sure, but not speedy, not what you might expect from a top-level marine carnivore. She might raise her head and look at you for a moment. Maybe even open her mouth in a gaping yawn. Then back to sleep. Show’s over.
Her pup is a small version of the same behavior. Pups are very cute; in fact maybe the cutest baby mammal on Earth, with their big eyes and curious gaze. But even the pups seem mostly interested in just two things. First is sleeping. Second is nursing, which they do whenever they aren’t sleeping. As they get bigger, they will sometimes slip under the ice and swim around for a while, often with their moms, and then it’s out of the water and back to sleep.
Ho hum? Hardly. There’s so much more than that to know about Weddell seals. Even when they’re just lying on the ice in a pupping colony, there’s a lot going on that we don’t see, or that takes a long time to understand.
In more than 50 years, the Weddell Seal Population Project has learned a great deal about the hidden side of seals — and produced videos that dive deep into the data. Those are available on our website.
Last but certainly not least, a short vid about Weddell Seal Super Moms which was completed before the most recent Super Mom encounters. The search continues!
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