Cornish Seals Wild

At the wild frontier, where the Atlantic ocean divides

around the granite skirts of Lands End

one man pursues his passion.

Stephen Westcott has spent two decades

exploring this remote coastline.

And uncovering the secret life of Cornish grey seals.

-RADIO:

-Lyme Regis to Lands End - occasionally gale eight at first.

I think of this place as the edge of the world.

My working life is spent in this dynamic margin,

between the familiar land

and the less predictable ocean rim.

I started off by loving surfing

and being in the sea.

Now, I'm in the sea every day, studying creatures that live between

the land and the sea every day.

The attraction was,

very little work had been done - which was a great shock to me.

I thought, well, it's so easy to find out,

as long as you are able to...

to live with the sea, as it were. And I can.

From July onwards, the seals are breeding

and I'm busy looking for their secret pups.

Because pup numbers are a reliable sign

of how well the local seals are doing.

The problem is, with the sea raging, I can't get onto the water.

But by low tide, I know of other routes to explore the seals' domain.

At the top of this boulder beach is a narrow sea cave

which might shelter what I'm after.

Now, what we've got here,

is a pool that's about 20 metres long and about 4 metres wide.

Unfortunately, there's a seal mother in the pool there,

I don't really want to go beyond it.

But if we're to find how many pups are born in this cave this year,

it has to be done while conditions are good.

Ready to proceed?

SPLASHING Ugh!

HE EXHALES

I'd just like her to submerge! SEAL SNORTS

That's better.

It's better.

OK, let's go. WATER SPLASHES

If you look about you here, you see a cave that's cathedral high,

so it's a wonderful place to be in, just in itself.

SEAL GROANS

In this amazing environment,

this most improbable environment, the seal pups are born.

Which seems something of a miracle.

I'd say this pup is at least two weeks old -

it's actually getting close to the point where it will be weaned.

After they're weaned,

after they've been in the world for less than three weeks,

they then have to teach themselves to swim if they haven't learned already.

And then, they also have to teach themselves to forage for food.

And they do this by diving repeatedly for...

Well, for stuff... PUP SNORTS

For stuff like this.

For seaweed, for stones,

for seashells.

STEVE SNORTS LOUDLY

I make that sound just to be reassuring.

Bit of a shock for a little seal pup to see a human come into a place

where it's only seen seals and surf and rock and sand and seaweed.

But for me, it's half-familiar,

but it's never going to be a place to be complacent.

I can never afford to be complacent in a place like this.

As the tide turns, the cave has become less safe.

It's time to leave.

A fragment of beach will remain,

where the pup will stay high and dry.

For the adults though, they're in their element,

and I love to watch them dance in a sea that would pulverise me.

There's an amazing amount of vitality here in the water, as you can see.

And yet the seals, you look at them and they're hardly moving at all,

despite all the massive movements of waters going on.

It's as if their full of holes, as though the power of the sea

goes through them and doesn't have any effect.

Seals are the reason for me to explore this enchanted world.

But it's more than just them.

It's kestrels mastering the updraughts.

Turnstones in the mussel beds.

It's the light, the colours... The everything.

The water is calmer today,

it's time to unleash the waveski.

WOLF WHISTLE

Perfect conditions to paddle out to Great Cave.

Yee-hoo!

This is an island where the birds nest in the spring time -

shags and herring gulls.

Up here.

And if you look at the patterning on the walls here,

for me this resembles nothing more than the hide of an elephant.

LOUD SPLASHING

Female seal.

Good sign.

Good sign - possibility of pups.

And dead ahead of us is the entrance to the cave, proper.

The waveski gives me access to these remote nurseries.

At high tide, they echo to the thunderous drumming of the sea.

WAVES CRASH AND SEALS GROAN

HE LAUGHS

This is another seal pup in tremendously good condition.

Very powerful, clearly not disturbed

by either the sound or the smell of us.

See the way it moves -

it lifts the front of the body up,

does a sort of breaststroke through the sand.

But the hind part of the body is dragged along the sand,

in effect as a dead weight.

PUP CRIES

This cry is saying, "I'm hungry, I want my mum to come and feed me",

this isn't distress because of our proximity.

What makes this such a great cave for pups to be born in -

there's always a beach at high tide, which is ideal.

But the other thing about this cave which is so wonderful is,

when this pup is one year old, 5 years old...

25 years old,

it'll come to this cave to moult, and it'll do that

in a great assembly of seals, perhaps as many as 50 lying on this beach.

And all of them moulting, in the heart of winter.

On the way out of the cave,

there was one final treat in store.

It's a pup!

It's just down on the bottom,

just down here for the minute.

Here.

There he is!

I always feel it's a priviledge to witness such a rite of passage.

A pup, leaving the darkness and sanctuary of the cave,

and swimming through the threads of sunlight to the ocean beyond.

For me, there's no sweeter inspiration.

Subtitles by Erika Graham Red Bee Media Ltd

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