A new video, captured by researchers from Durham University, UK, shows the disturbing cannibalism of grey seals.
An adult male grey seal was caught drowning, killing, and partially eating a seal pup after unsuccessfully mating with an unrelated female grey seal.
The cannibalism was videotaped at the seal breeding grounds in the Isle of May, Scotland. The grey seal was taped eating the pup on Dec. 2nd, 2014. He killed and ate four more pups in the following week, using the same method of dragging them into a pool of freshwater with his jaw, drowning them, then eating them.
An autopsy of the seal pups found that the adult grey seal did not consume all of the carcass, just a chunk of blubber from each of the bodies.
The researchers also found the half-eaten bodies of other pups, presumably killed by other adult seals.
“One potential explanation is that the male is tapping into a handy food reserve right next door to him,” team member Sean Twiss told the New Scientist. “It may be some new strategy to maximize reproductive success.”
