Sad Seal Story

Harbor Seal pupping season is off to a tragic start on Vashon. On July 25, a pup recovered from the beach at Dilworth died in transport to rehab. The pup was dehydrated and malnourished because the mother could not nurse her baby regularly. Too many people hovering around the pup or otherwise disregarding the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) -- federal law that protects seals -- deterred the mother from coming ashore to feed her baby.

A much-publicized episode with a "weaner" seal in Henderson Inlet illustrates the challenges facing marine mammal stranding responders. The public generally dislikes hearing that we do not routinely intervene with every solitary pup. Scarce resources and funding limit response capacity – can you say "sequestration?" We do not handle seals as if they were stray puppies and kittens.
 
The Henderson Inlet "weaner" is at a Harbor Seal haul-out site with dozens of seals. At more than four weeks old, he is old enough to find his own food. Several mothers rejected him before he found one willing to let him nurse alongside her own younger pup. Do not expect such a Disney ending on Vashon. We have no large seal haul-outs nearby, so another lactating mom is unlikely to indulge a forlorn pup here.

Hauling out is normal pinniped behavior. Pinnipeds -- seals and sea lions -- do it everyday. They come ashore to rest, thermoregulate, mate, give birth, nurse young, and molt. In urban Puget Sound, pinnipeds use manmade structures and even large marine debris because many shorelines are unnatural and highly developed.

Typically, seal pups on shore are not abandoned or ill. Mother seals leave their pups alone, sometimes for many hours, while they forage offshore. Pups nap on beaches, rafts, boat ramps, stairs, and bulkheads. Inexperienced or first-time mothers are more likely to park their pups in less desirable, high-traffic areas, such as the boat ramp by La Playa Restaurant and busy beaches at Point Robinson, KVI and Dilworth.

Newborn seals look appealing and helpless on land, but resist the impulse to touch or feed them. Do not move them, pour water on them, cover them with blankets, or put them in a backpack, car, bathtub – aargh! Stay 100 yards away from pups on shore; respect their space.

Harassing marine mammals violates the MMPA. Harassment or disturbance occurs when people impede a marine mammal’s ability to hunt, feed, rest, breed, communicate, socialize, or care for young. Moreover, frightened seals can bite and transmit diseases to dogs and humans.

If people and dogs loiter around a seal pup, thereby preventing Mom from returning to nurse her baby, Mom might ditch the pup. Disrupting feeding and maternal bonding jeopardizes pup survival. Interfering with natural behavior by "rescuing" a seal pup who is not in trouble imperils the pup’s adaptability in the wild. Seal rehab centers have severely limited space, and pups released from rehab face an uncertain future. Studies show that they do not hunt as proficiently as wild-reared pups. People are poor substitutes for seal mothers.

Inadvertently, waterfront-dwelling humans are encroaching on seal habitat. We must be considerate and learn to share the shore with seal moms and babies during pupping season, which is July to September on Vashon-Maury Island. Check out NOAA’s "Sharing the Shore with Harbor Seal Pups" fact sheet at www.nwr.noaa.gov/Marine-Mammals/Stranding-Information.cfm.

We urge Islanders to immediately report seal pups on beaches where crowd control is an issue. Many incidents involving seal pups can be harmoniously resolved with a phone call to the VHP. Posting a seal sign on private property is problematic – the signs often go missing or become beach trash. With help from compassionate neighbors, we would prefer to designate informal "Seal Sitters."

Annual Harbor Seal pup mortality is a sobering 50%. As stranding responders, we habitually confront the distressing sight of dying or dead marine mammals. Human intrusion contributed to the Dilworth pup’s death. Seal pups should not die needlessly from ignorance and insensitivity.

Please support the work of the Vashon Hydrophone Project (VHP): REPORT LOCAL WHALE SIGHTINGS ASAP TO 463-9041, as well as sick, injured, or dead marine mammals on Island beaches. Prompt reports to the VHP expedite vital data collection efforts by Mark Sears and other researchers, and sustain an accurate record of whale sightings for Vashon-Maury and Central Puget Sound initiated three decades ago. Check for updates at Vashonorcas.org and send photos to Orca Annie at Vashonorcas@aol.com.