While on vacation this year, we spent a lot of time at The Head of the Meadow National Park beach.
One of the things we love about this beach is how close the seals are and go cruising past all during the day.
On our last day there, we saw this nose pop out, grabbed the binoculars and could tell is was a young seal.
Well, we kept watching......
And watching..........
And watching, until it had floated like this past us. I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that the seal was not alive.
I went down to the life guard stand to ask them to please look and see if the seal was okay with their binoculars. It was the end of their day, and there weren't many people on the beach. One did look, while another told me that this is how young seals sleep.
I was not sure if I wanted to believe her, thinking she was telling me this to appease me.
She also said if I were to go down to High Head, I would see plenty of young seals sleeping exactly as this one is. It was high tide and they tire from fishing so hard when the tide is going out that they often see them sleep like this.
I tried really hard to believe her, but as soon as we got back to our hotel room, I had to google it and check.
And, it's TRUE. It's called bottling. Only their nose sticks out of the water while they sleep in the water like this. Also, that only half of their brain is asleep, the other half is awake and on alert for predators.
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