A grey seal named Dawid rolls in leaves as part of his care

Dawid, a 26-year-old Baltic grey seal at Borysew zoo near Poddębice, has been rolling in autumn leaves, and the clip has drawn millions of views. CBC Kids News reported on October 30, 2026, that people online doubted the video was real. The zoo's account of the behavior is more ordinary than the comments suggest.

Keepers use the roll as part of daily medical training. The zoo says they watch how Dawid moves, look at his skin, and inspect his flippers and eyes. Rolling keeps the check from feeling like a bad moment, and it gives a captive animal something to do with his body. Damian Lidgard, a biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, told CBC Kids News that wild grey seals roll too. In the breeding season, males fight and then may roll as a signal that the fight is over and they are settling. Grey seals are adaptable. More than half of the world's population is in Canada, with a large colony on Sable Island in Nova Scotia, and others live around Britain, Ireland, and the Baltic. Some of those places have grass and leaves, so a roll on land is not out of place.

CBC Kids News put the view count above 7 million on the Instagram post from the zoo. The report is about this seal's training and about a behavior wild seals already have. It is not a medical diagnosis, and it does not say the leaves treat an illness.