A biology teacher in Dorset spotted a seal in an epic battle with an eel and managed to film the peckish pinniped having its lunch.
Jeremy Rowe was birdwatching off the coast when he saw a commotion in the water. He has seen seals a handful of times before but this was a particularly special encounter.
“I've never seen one for a protracted period like this,” he says. “It was battling. If it went underwater to subdue the eel, it had to come back to the surface to breathe, then pause for a bit and rest.”
As he watched, the hungry seal grappled with its prey. “You can see it trying to figure out what's going to be next,” he says. Eventually, it managed to subdue it so it could enjoy its hearty snack.
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The huge eel – which measured around a metre and a half long – put up a good fight. “I wouldn't want to tackle one,” says Rowe who has seen these enormous eels while scuba diving. “If it was to bite you, you’d know about it.”
Rowe watched the seal for around 25 minutes. “It probably started about 500 metres to my right then it drifted in front of me, so it was almost 20 metres away. And then it drifted off another 300 metres to the left and went around the corner.”
Climbing over the rocks to follow the seal, Rowe could see the seal stripping the outside layers off the eel. "It was about 30% through the carcass,” he says. “It was probably full by then!”
He could see the animal flicking its head up into the air. "What it was doing was stripping off some flesh,” he says. “It tosses it back into the air and swallows it.”
Rowe, who is also a musician, is now thinking about writing a song about his sighting of the seal and the eel.
Main image: seal eating eel in Dorset/Jeremy Rowe
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