In January of 1992, I first visited the seal colony at Cape Cross, Namibia, when this picture was taken. I returned to Namibia in 2009; the pictures in the gallery below are from my return to Cape Cross in late June 2009, just before the sealing season resumed. Each July, 85,000 still-nursing seal pups are slaughtered. The Cape Cross Seal Reserve is the largest colony and breeding ground for Cape Fur Seals in the world. The photographs below include pictures of what's been described as a baby seal graveyard; these remains are left by jackals, not by human hunters. What has economic value are the skins of the youngest seals; human hunters leave no remains.

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