Page 36 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

DON’T MISS
WINTERWATCH
Airing on BBC Two from
29 January to 1 February.

FOCUS

GREY MATTER

How GREY SEALS deal with stress depends on their
personality, discovers the BBC’s Chris Howard.

For grey seals, breeding is stressful. Leaving recorded by means of observation and heart-
the sanctuary of the water, females haul out rate monitors. Full analysis of the data will take
for a month, giving birth and raising their time, but a few things are becoming clear.
pups as quickly as they can, before mating First, seals seem to get as stressed by
with the big, boisterous males that chance anthropogenic stimuli as they do by natural
their luck through the whole season. The ones. Lead scientist Sean Twiss points
resulting pups will be born a year later. Now, out that even though seals may appear
as seal watching becomes more popular in calm when approached by a well-meaning
the UK, a team from Durham University and tourist, there is a good chance they are not,
the University of St Andrews’ Sea Mammal because “observed behaviour doesn’t always
Research Unit is investigating whether reflect the stress state of the seal.” Second,
human disturbance adds to the seals’ the team have noticed that seals react
stress. Their study site is the Isle of May, differently to stress. “Some are inherently
a craggy outcrop in the Firth of Forth, home more responsive, others less so,” Twiss says.
to the largest breeding colony of grey seals In other words, they have personalities.
on Scotland’s east coast. The research may eventually show that
The team is noting stress responses in the personalities of seals in this population
female seals to both natural stimuli, for are changing. The simple presence of
example the arrival of a large male at the humans may be affecting which seals
colony, and man-made stimuli, such as the breed and thus which behavioural traits are
approach of a researcher or unfamiliar noises passed on – something to bear in mind on
played by a remote-control car driven into your next trip to the coast.
the colony. For each stressful situation, the O Chris Howard is series producer of
behavioural and physiological responses are Winterwatch. See a preview on p88.