Harbor seal in the context of Display behaviour

An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity. This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.

Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. These disasters have included deaths of wildlife, humans and plants, or severe disruption of human life or health, possibly requiring migration. Some environmental disasters are the trigger source of more expansive environmental conflicts, where effected groups try to socially confront the actors responsible for the disaster.

Display behaviour is a set of ritualized behaviours that enable an animal to communicate to other animals (typically of the same species) about specific stimuli. Such ritualized behaviours can be visual, but many animals depend on a mixture of visual, audio, tactical and chemical signals. Evolution has tailored these stereotyped behaviours to allow animals to communicate both conspecifically and interspecifically which allows for a broader connection in different niches in an ecosystem. It is connected to sexual selection and survival of the species in various ways. Typically, display behaviour is used for courtship between two animals and to signal to the female that a viable male is ready to mate. In other instances, species may make territorial displays, in order to preserve a foraging or hunting territory for its family or group. A third form is exhibited by tournament species in which males will fight in order to gain the 'right' to breed. Animals from a broad range of evolutionary hierarchies avail of display behaviours - from invertebrates such as the simple jumping spider to the more complex vertebrates like the harbour seal.

The Gare Loch or Gareloch (Scottish Gaelic: An Gearr Loch) is an open sea loch in Argyll and Bute in the west of Scotland, and it bears a similar name to the village of Gairloch in the north west Highlands.

The loch is well used for recreational boating, water sports and fishing. Harbour and grey seals are often seen in the Gare Loch along with pods of porpoise. Bottle Nose whales were photographed in September 2020. The loch also has been used since the early 20th century for naval training and as a base for the United Kingdom's submarine based nuclear weapons system.