- The grey seal lay next to its companion’s body for hours on a Lincolnshire beach
- The pup appears to be using its sibling’s body for comfort at the secluded spot
- Wildlife photographer captured the image at the end of November
A heartbreaking photograph has captured the moment a seal pup cuddles up to its dead sibling after they were both abandoned by their mother.
The two-week-old animal lay next to its deceased companion for hours on a secluded beach near North Somercotes, Lincolnshire.
The pup appears to be using its sibling for comfort by lying its flippers on its body.
Wildlife photographer Sean Weekly, 28, said: ‘This moment nearly brought tears to my eyes. This young pup was cuddled to another dead pup for quite a few hours.
Heartbreaking: The grey seal pup cuddles up to its dead sibling after the two were abandoned by their mother
‘It’s awful, it’s sad and it’s pretty rare behaviour. I’ve been doing this for four years and I’ve never seen it before.
‘You’ll see him go away from the pup over the day but it would not leave more than 30m and kept coming back.’
Mr Weekly today said the pup in the picture, taken on November 21, would most likely have died soon after the photograph was taken.
He added: ‘He was seeing his own fate before it happened.
‘When a pup is abandoned it will try to go to other females, males and even other pups to try to suckle – it will try everything to try to survive.
‘But another female would just bite it because they have only got so much milk – so I think it’s got to the point when it just wanted to feel safe next to something without being bitten or thrown away and it decided that on this dead pup.
‘Wildlife can be so cruel at times. I ultimately knew what was going to happen but there was nothing I could do.’