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Friendly Grey Seal Tries to Remove Diver's Hood

Diver Ben Burville is no stranger to getting up close and personal with friendly grey seals around the Farne Islands.

Burville captured this video on a dive back in 2017, when a grey seal tried to remove his dive mask. Burville told Storyful, “the seals often play with my mask and I removed it to see what they would do.” When Burville removed his mask, the seal tried instead to pull off the hood of the diver’s suit, pulling softly at it with its teeth.

Burville refers to the grey seals as his “dive buddies”, and his YouTube channel features many clips of his underwater interactions with the social creatures. However, Burville is very much aware that the seals are wild animals, noting to Storyful that they “are NOT pets or tamed or habituated”.

Grey seals are common to the Farne Islands; the National Trust says that the region is home to thousands of them. Credit: Ben Burville via Storyful