The grey seal in Brittany, France

There are only two colonies of gray seals in Brittany: one is installed in the archipelago of Molène in Finistere and the other is installed in the islands of Seven Brothers off the Côtes d'Armor. We spent several hours to observe the colony of the Côtes d'Armor: a female and its two babies. The gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) is easy to recognize at its long massive head. It is largest seal of Europe and some animals can reach a weight from 150 to 200 kg. The gray seal hunt fish living between the rocks and at the base of cliffs. It likes the rock coasts and this is why its sites of predilection in the Atlantic are the Molène islands and Seven-Islands in Brittany. Gregarious species, it gathers all the year in very noisy small groups. It continuously emits a kind of hululement characteristic. Placid, the gray seals rest by a few meters of water, lying at the bottom in the middle of the rocks and of the algae. They go up every approximately five minutes to breathe during one or two minutes.

The grey seal in Brittany, France.

The grey seal in Brittany, France.

The grey seal in Brittany, France.