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NATURE IN WALES VOL. 3, No. I. SPRING 1957 SEAL MARKING 1956-57 A. L. JOHNSON (In a broadcast on 25th January, 1957, Dr. L. Harrison Matthews, Director of the Zoological Society of London, referred to the successful ring-marking of seals by the West Wales Field Society, with the below-described recoveries to the south and west. He also remarked that the marking of grey seal calves over a similar period in the Fame Islands, Northumberland, by the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne had resulted in recoveries in an opposite direction north towards Scotland, and east to Norway (1), and the River Elbe (1). There have been very few recoveries of seals ringed in the Hebrides by the University of London (Prof. H. R. Hewer) as yet.) INTRODUCTION THE W.W.F.S. has again taken part in the scheme for ring-marking British seals with rings supplied by, and stamped with the address of, the Zoological Society of London. As announced in a previous issue of Nature in Wales, a grant was provided by the Nature Con- servancy to defray some of the cost of the seal ringing trips, and it encouraged us to hope that the previous average of just over 100 seals ringed each year would be exceeded. It was, and in spite of the unfortunate loss in July of the W.W.F.S. launch Mayflower, which upset the planned ringing programme. That the year ended with so many seals ringed was due largely to the kindness of various people who offered the use of their boats. We acknowledge with pleasure this ready assistance. The period covered by this report is September 1956 to March 1957. THE 1956-57 SEASON 154 seals were ringed. The total was made up of 82 cows and 65 bulls (the sex of seven of the calves was not determined). As in previous years, a large proportion were ringed on Ramsey Island. In addition to the information on migration, which has become available with the recovery of ringed seals away from West Wales, some of the recorded details of pups that were ringed during the several visits to the nurseries in 1956 provided useful data as follows