Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
This footage shows a baby maned seal that has been born at Vienna zoo venturing outside for the first time to the delight of visitors.
The baby seal, who has not yet been named because of all the excitement about the birth according to the zoo, was born on 2nd July and is a male.
The baby spent the first days of his life quietly with his mum and out of sight.
His mum is called Peaches and has been at the Vienna Schoenbrunn zoo since 2016.
According to Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck, the director of the zoo, Peaches is doing her job as a mum “very well”.
The two are in a special enclosure area that has shallow water and that was specially designed for the pair.
While seals can swim from birth, it will still take a little while for the little one to “discover the joy of splashing around”, but as soon as the baby can move around on land and in the water properly, it will be allowed to join the rest of the seals along with its mum.
Hering-Hagenbeck told Austrian newspaper Kurier: “The little one weighs about 10 kilogrammes (22 lbs). It is suckled for the first six to eight months. When it is hungry, it draws attention to itself.
The baby seal’s dad is none other than the leader of the pack and is called Commandante.
In a statement quoting director Hering-Hagenbeck, the zoo told Newsflash: “It is the first offspring for the young female seal Peaches, who moved to us from the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich in 2016. Peaches is a great mother. She nurses her little one and takes good care of him.”
He added: “Maned seals are native to the coasts of South America. The males hold a harem. In Schoenbrunn, Comandante is the boss and father of the young animal.”
South American sea lions (Otaria flavescens), also known as maned seals, are the most sexually dimorphic of the five known sea lion species. Males are approximately three times the size of females.
