Horsey Gap seals ‘may be moving to less crowded sites’

Mr Ansell, an 89-year-old retired transport manager, said he had been involved with the seal pup count for about two decades.

“We’ve normally had a 5% increase year-on-year,” he said.

“But in the past two years the numbers have levelled out.”

He said pups were born between October and February, and that the group carried out weekly counts.

Mr Ansell stressed that counting seals was difficult and that figures were probably not 100% accurate.

The latest showed about 3,200 had been born since October – about 370 down on a year ago, he said.