The Private Life of the Grey Seal
(1972)
Revealed in intimate detail, the life-style of Britan's largest wild animal is filmed for the first time. The Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) spends ten months at sea, where it can dive to 400 feet and stay submerged for twenty minutes. During two fast-moving months ashore, the cows give birth, wean their young in three weeks, mate, and put to sea again. But the seal also has a public life; fishermen complain that it takes salmon. Last year's (1972) decision by the Naional Trust to kill two thousand Farne Island seals is debated in the programme.
