One of the most fascinating characteristics of seals is their unique method of searching for food. With their continuously growing whiskers, the seal sweeps its upper lip to and fro, using these sensitive whiskers to detect fish in murky waters.

Seals have excellent vision in water. Their eyes must focus on air and water, so their eyes are big and round.

Another characteristic of seals is their keen sense of smell in the air, allowing them to detect predators. Females also use smell to recognise their pups on crowded breeding beaches. While swimming, the nostrils are kept tightly shut.

Seals hear very well in both water and air. Females and pups often call each other. Seals also make growls and grunts underwater, especially during the breeding season.

Seals exhibit fascinating adaptability in their feeding habits. They are opportunistic feeders, capable of adjusting their diet to the prey available. They dive to around 120 metres or even 300m deep, feeding on various fish such as sand eels, herring, saithe, and whiting, as well as bottom-dwelling fish like plaice and flounder. Squid and octopus are also frequently on their menu.

 Seals breed in colonies where animals congregate on beaches, sandflats, and caves. Male seals often fight for access to females.

Grey seals give birth to a single pup on beaches or in hidden sea caves from July to November. Common Seals pup on beaches and tidal sandflats within tidal reach from May to July. In both species, conception to birth takes around 11 months, and embryo implantation is delayed by around three months.

Grey Seal pups are born with a silky white coat or lanugo and moult around 9-18 days old. They are pretty helpless. Common Seal pups are dark and mottled, having shed their lanugo before birth. They can swim within 5 minutes.

Seal mothers demonstrate an extraordinary level of care and dedication. Grey Seal pups are nursed for only around 17 days, during which they must grow rapidly, consuming 3.2kg of fat-rich milk daily! The female does not eat during this time. After weaning, the pup moults and must fast, living on its stored fat for up to 4 weeks before it learns to forage and catch its own fish. The Common Seal pup learns to forage much earlier as it accompanies its mother on short trips 3-5 weeks after she nurses it. They spend much more time playing in the water from a very early stage.

Seals mate at the end of lactation. Grey Seal females can breed at around four years old, whereas female Common Seals must be 3 to 7 years old to breed, and males must be 3 to 8 years old. Both species can mate in water.  During the moult, seals spend much of their time hauled out of land as they need to conserve energy. Grey Seals moult from December-March (females) and March-May (males) in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and Common Seals from mid-July to mid-September.

The main threats to the UK and Irish seals are Interactions with fisheries diseases, e.g., the phocine distemper virus (PDV) Epidemic of 1988, which killed 18,000 seals, pollution—plastic debris, and toxic chemicals. Seals could also be threatened by repeated calls for a cull in Scotland, often due to perceived competition with fisheries and concerns about seal predation on fish stocks