27/02/2024
Meet Buffel, the southern elephant seal come gymnast.
The largest of all seal species, the southern elephant seal is usually found in sub-Antarctic waters and spend most of their life at sea, only coming ashore to breed or to annually moult their fur.
Buffel, however, was born along the Cape shores of South Africa to a displaced female, and there are only a handful of elephant seals that frequent around the Cape shores. So when Buffel chose a nearby beach to spend a month for his annual moult, it provided a rare opportunity to see an animal that would usually only be seen with a trip to the Antarctic regions! And he was happy to model for the camera too. What an unexpected and awesome animal to tick off the āseen in the wildā list!