Seals have been sighted off Jersey’s coast and offshore reefs and islands for many years (see Status of Seals in Jersey). JerseySeals maintained a database of the sightings of seals for the Channel Islands area especially for the years from 1997 through to 2000: it contains over 800 records each with more than 20 fields (although not all fields have data for all records). Some key findings are made available here.
There are many confirmed sightings (see Table 1 below) of the Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) and very few reports of the Harbour (or Common) Seal (Phoca vitulina). A seal sighting is the event where and when one or more seals are seen.
Table 1: Sightings of the Harbour (or Common) Seal (Phoca
vitulina), Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) and Seals of unidentified
species.
|
Harbour Seal Sightings |
Grey Seal Sightings |
Unidentified Seal Species |
|
3 |
590 |
207 |
|
· All 3 from Guernsey. · Two in 1995 and one in 1997. · Two of the reports state “thought” to be “Common Seal”. |
· Grey Seal or Atlantic Seal identified in the report (or recorded so by default). |
· Not necessarily either Grey or Harbour. |
|
Note · This relates to the database (up to 26.5.2001) with eight hundred seal sightings over the whole Channel Islands area. · Guernsey records by kind permission of Société Guernesiaise. |
||
Care should be exercised in interpreting the data in Table 1. Many of the sightings are from casual observers some of whom who may find it difficult to differentiate between Grey, Harbour and other seals. Anderson (1990) warns that Harbour or Common Seals “and Grey Seals … look very alike and even experienced seal spotters have been known to make mistakes. The most useful features for telling them apart are size, head shape and coat colour. Grey Seals are the larger of the two British species …” (page 17). The database has consequently been searched for sightings of small seals. There are 44 such reports. Of these 17 did not indicate species (and so are included in the 207 sightings where species was not identified). The remaining 27 specified Grey Seal and of these there are four sightings over three days at the same site within Les Minquiers reef that may have included one or two Harbour Seals amongst a group of Greys.
Small numbers of Harbour Seal are reported in the Baie de Mont Saint Michel (Gautier, 2000). It is perhaps likely that they may occasionally be present and sighted in the Channel Islands.
It is probable that the great majority of seals sighted in the Channel Islands are Grey Seals although the presence of the Harbour Seal cannot be ruled out.
Anderson, S., 1990, Seals, Whittet Books, London.
Gautier, G., 2000, Personal Communication.
Authors:
Jo Le Marquand and Ewa Le Marquand. First published: 11.08.2002
- this
version dated 27.12.2003 (minor revisions 28.02.04). This article is published
to further appreciation and understanding of the status of seals around Jersey.