seal pup

We were walking down to the Brass Bell the other evening (slitting our eyes against a howling south easter!) and we came across this tiny fellow, sitting on his own on a rock. When I hopped closer to him he asked me in a bleat: "Maaaa?" I'm not sure if Ma was anywhere nearby, but hope she was. Although he was strong and healthy, he's probably only a month old and will not survive without his mother. We saw another young cape fur seal bobbing in the wild waves just off the rocks, so there might have been more of them, as well as his Ma. I called a local marine wildlife officer, who suggested that we wait to see if he was still there in the morning, in which case he would call the SPCA, but I couldn't see him when I walked down after sunrise - I hope he did manage to get back to seal island in the middle of False Bay, but it's a long way!

Cape fur seal pup at Muizenberg