a wee baby Weddell seal

Baby animals are typically pretty cute, especially, when that baby animal is a young Weddell seal! Look at that cubby monster!! It is the youngest Weddell seal that I have seen with my expedition trips down to the Antarctic Peninsula. So I was incredibly stoked to come across this young fella and his mum yesterday at Half Moon Island, which is in the South Shetland Islands next to the Peninsula.

You can see he has almost finished molting his baby coat, which is called a Lanugo and getting his sub-adult coat. During this time as well, he is still nursing but also does join mum in the water, as she does forage for food the last few weeks before he heads off on his own in an attempt to survive this beautiful yet dangerous region. He will have a lot of predators to escape, as well as, food to find, which can be over 600m down!

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