Cape Cross Seal Reserve

Home to what is possibly the largest Cape Fur Seal colony on Earth, Cape Cross can at times see its colony sized in the low hundreds of thousands of seals. The adult males arrive at the breeding sites in late October to early November to fight for territory before the females come ashore. I visited in late November, by which time it would appears, the pups had been born and it must be peak colony size!

Seeing such a large gathering of mammals in one place, is truly extraordinary. Well, I guess there's always the subways of Tokyo, but when it comes to non-human mammals, this is a massive number. Just look how crowded it appears!

Located 120km (75mi) north of Swakopmund on the west coast of Namibia, it was a good 1hr drive round trip out of my way, but I have to say, it was worth it. Even the thousands of Penguins I saw in Antarctica were more dispersed than this crowd of seals and their pups. As you can see, there are lots and lots of pups!

There was a ton of non-stop seal activity going on. Seals grabbing their pups in their mouths and taking them somewhere else. Aarf aarf aarf! Non-stop aarfing from every direction.