Donna Nook Nature Reserve enjoys near-record year for seal births

The reserve has enjoyed another bumper year, recording 2,205 births

A Lincolnshire nature reserve has enjoyed a near-record year for the number of seal pups born.

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust said 2,205 pups had been born at the Donna Nook reserve this season, compared with a record number of 2,214 in 2020.

The seals spend most of the year at sea or on sandbanks but come ashore to give birth late in the year.

The reserve recorded this season's first birth on 30 October and the last on 21 December.

In 2011 and 2013, dozens of young pups died when tidal surges hit the coast but the colony has otherwise enjoyed growth in most years.

Many of the pups born at the reserve will return when they are ready to give birth, the wildlife trust said

The trust said it would usually see a 1-5% increase in the number of pups each year, helped by the reserve having a very low mortality rate due to the seals being fenced off from the viewing area and being able to get a long way from the incoming tide.

Many of the baby seals also return to the same place they were born to give birth themselves.

Grey seals are born white but, after they have been abandoned at two or three weeks, they shed the fur

Up to 60,000 visitors come to see the pups along the six-mile stretch of beach, part of which is an active Royal Air Force weapons range.

Up to 60,000 people visit the reserve during the pupping season

People are regularly asked to give the animals space to protect them and to follow the guidelines.

According to the wildlife trust, after suckling their pups for two to three weeks, the seals abandon the young, mate again ready for the following year and then head back out to sea.

Eventually, hunger drives the young seals into the water in the hunt for food.

Grey seals have been breeding on the Lincolnshire coast since the early 1970s