The Harbour Seals catch some salmon,chow down and then lay in the sun! What a life!
The Harbour Seals all hang out together on Rankin rocks. No ground predators! They love laying in the sun! They have all come for the salmon festival!
The only way I can get shots of Harbour Seals is If I do a “Tofino drive by”. That involves me zipping past them at a fast speed and shooting what I can. I than go around and do it all over again but shave 20 feet off.
If I stop, they’ll freak and jump quickly back into the water!
I’ve noticed many of these Harbour Seals show signs recent wounds.I now believe its not from predators but from infighting amongst themselves.Strange thing is I’ve never seen them fighting while up on the rocks.So my only conclusion is that they must fight while in the water where they are far more maneuverable?
You can see the sky in this Harbour Seals eye! The sun was being blocked by some clouds at the time.
I noticed a Harbour Seal with some injuries today.It not only had a recent neck wound but also looked like it was missing some of it’s flipper!
To make matters worse it also looks like it’s left eye has something wrong with it! Maybe glaucoma?
It looked like this pup was waving hello to me!
The youngster has her mothers nose!
When I shot this I didn’t know that there was a pod of Orcas in the area.You can bet that these guys wouldn’t be relaxing like this if those Orcas were swimming around!
There are two distinct groups of Orcas.One group eats animals like this (warm bloodied) & the other group eats only salmon.The “Transients” eat seals/sea lion while the “Residents” eat the salmon.
Seeing a Seal inside the stream was unusual. They normally do not come into the system & If they do come in It’s always during high tide. They wouldn’t be able to get in during low tide. During spawning season,they must come in,grab a salmon & head out.They’d never eat it on shore! A Bear would love to grab one of these guys! So Mr.Seal grabs & runs.