Bitch: On the Female of the Species

by Lucy Cooke

‘I’ve seen mothers that give birth to their pup and literally abandon it the second it comes out of them. Their pup is trying to interact with them and they’ll just ignore it and roll over,’ Robinson told me. ‘Everything that the grey seal mother has to do for her pup is crammed into this brief eighteen-day period so there should be high selection pressure for only the best maternal care. So what is going on?’ Robinson found that oxytocin levels provided a reliable metric for predicting maternal behaviour in wild grey seals: mothers with high levels spend more time snuggling up to their pups and developing a strong attachment. Low oxytocin levels suggest a less secure bond, and the female in Robinson’s study with the lowest levels did indeed abandon her pup on the fourth day. Her oxytocin level was so low, in fact, it was comparable to that of a non-breeding female.