A visit to the Cape fur seal breeding colony at Cape Cross on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia will leave you with two distinct impressions: the fishy smell and the constant noise. The barking, growling and bleating of 210,000 seals sounds like chaos to the human ear, which leaves us wondering: how do mother seals find their pups, or male seals differentiate between mates and rivals in this apparently confusing cacophony? Seals, sea lions and walruses (collectively known as pinnipeds) are a particularly interesting group of mammals in terms of communications, as they are highly vocal, live in colonies of varying densities and have a variety of mating strategies. The Cape Cross colony of Cape fur seals provides an excellent case study for investigating pinniped communications; this is the densest colony of pinnipeds in the world, which requires the seals living here to have clear communication strategies. Surprisingly, while communication among several other pinniped species has been studied, we know nothing about Cape fur seal communication. The Namibian Dolphin Project therefore teamed up with French researchers from Paris-Saclay University to investigate. Although this project is not yet finished, we have already uncovered some of the seals' strategies for communicating clearly despite the deafening din.