Scientists crack case of decapitated seal pups that have been found on California beaches since 2016 – and they say the culprit is ‘surprising’
- Scientists said the cuts were jagged and could not have been made with a knife
- They placed a camera on a beach and captured images of the perpetrator
- READ MORE: Two seal pups nearly decapitated by discarded fishing nets
Since 2016, dozens of dead seal pups have been found on beaches along California's coast with their heads “torn off,” raising concerns that humans could be to blame.
However, scientists discovered that the cuts were jagged and not as precise as those made with a knife, which led them on a mission to discover what was responsible.
A team in the case set up camera traps in the northern region of the state in the hope of seeing the perpetrator in action – and they were surprised by what they saw.
The footage showed a coyote dragging a lifeless pup onto the camera and gnawing off its head, confirming that the animals are feeding on seals in several remote locations in California.
Since 2016, dozens of dead seal pups with their 'heads torn off' have been found on beaches along the California coast, raising concerns that humans may be to blame
The cameras are part of research on land and sea connections by UC Santa Cruz doctoral candidate Frankie Gerraty, who worked with Sarah Grimes, stranding coordinator at the Noyo Center for Marine Science in Mendocino County.
The team has not yet released the coyote footage due to more research, but they plan to share the video at a later date.
“It was so horrific,” Grimes said The Mercury News. “I was a marine mammal CSI, and I saw all the dead pups with their heads ripped off, and I thought, 'What the hell did that do?' '
Grimes suspected the headless pups were the work of coyotes, since the two coexist in the same habitat.
However, coyotes are not known to go after living marine life.
Grimes and Gerraty set up cameras on MacKerricher Beach in Northern California and waited to see if anything would turn up.
The footage showed a coyote dragging a lifeless pup onto the camera and gnawing off its head, confirming that the animals are feeding on seals in several remote locations in California.
“We set up camera traps and got some very solid video of a coyote dragging and decapitating a young seal,” Gerraty told The Mercury News.
“We're fairly confident that predation has occurred at four locations along the Northern California coast.”
However, researchers have yet to discover why coyotes only feast on heads and leave the body behind.
One of the first sightings of headless seal pups was made in 2016 by Steveston resident David Stuart, walking his dog on the beach.
Stuart noted that the body had no lacerations and that the body around the neck was “surgical,” he said.
'The seal's rectum has been removed and cauterized; it doesn't make sense,” Stuart told the newspaper Richmond News in 2016.
“As far as I'm concerned, this was a crime scene; this needed to be looked at.”
He notified authorities who believed the wounds were “consistent with those from a large propeller.”
But more than seven years later, scientists have found the perpetrator behind the seal killings.