Sunday November 17, 2024 - We enjoyed a fine fall seal walk today, and we were treated to a good marine mammal observation experience with plenty of seals on the rocks to check out. Due to the prolonged run of nice weather there are still quite a few boats out and about on the bay, and the seals were harassed today by a couple of fools in a boat who thought it would be a good idea to throw objects at them. Behavior at this level of stupidity is rare at Rome Point, and will be less likely after winter sets in, nonetheless, it put a damper on what was otherwise a fine early season seal watch.

Late morning to mid-afternoon seal tides are on tap for this week; any day with wind less than 15 mph should provide a good seal observation.

We took a look at our past seal counts back in April, as we were curious when we had last seen over 150 seals on the rocks at Rome Point. It turns out that March 27, 2021 was the last seal count that exceeded the 150 seal benchmark, and we have to go back to spring 2018 to see multiple consecutive counts of greater than 150 seals. We were aware that the past several seasons we have been seeing fewer seals than we have in years past, and some of that can be accounted for considering the lower number of observations that we made during the Covid years of 2020 and 2021. Spring 2022 and 2023 were very busy years for our small business which resulted in less free time for seal watching during those spring seasons, which is a factor that makes drawing conclusions from our observation records more uncertain. Still, we would assert that there are not as many seals making there home in Narragansett Bay as there were 10 years ago, for reasons that we continue to ponder as our seal counts gradually become slightly lower each season.

The links below connect to short seal videos we posted on YouTube for your seal watching amusement.  Seal Pup Follies was recorded in Maine in June 2012 and Linebelly Rising is a short clip showing the former Rome Point kingpin climbing to the top of his favorite pointy rock.