Sometimes they’re just sunning; sometimes, they’re stranded and need help
The April 3 sighting of a harp seal on Ocean City’s 15th Street beach created plenty of excitement among boardwalkers and beachgoers.
The adult mammal soon attracted a crowd, and some people worried that it was lost or injured. Fortunately, this seal was just enjoying a siesta, and after an hour or two of sunbathing, it waddled back into the surf.
While seals are not an everyday sight on local beaches, they’re not unheard of. So how to tell if a seal is safe or in danger? And what’s the proper etiquette when you see one?
Rule one: keep your distance, and keep your pets away too. Approaching within 100 feet of a marine mammal on the beach, a jetty or dock is illegal, and can be extremely dangerous.
Five types of seals are found off the coast of New Jersey, particularly in the winter and spring: harp seals, harbor seals, grey seals, hooded seals and ringed seals. While they’re beautiful and even cuddly to look at, and their actions in the water can be perceived as playful, Sheila Dean of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine emphasizes that they are predators, with dangerous claws and plenty of sharp teeth.
They’re also strong: at maturity, a male hooded seal can be 10 feet long and weigh about 900 pounds.
Some seals “play possum” if approached; others get aggressive when they feel threatened. If an injured animal is approached, it may try to return to the water, where it could easily die.
All seals bite, “some more severely than others – I have the scars,” says Dean. “And they don’t bite and let go. They bite and hang on.” Because of their diet (live fish), their mouths can also be filled with bacteria. And seals can carry viruses and other infections that can be transmitted to humans or pets by a cough or sneeze.
So if you spot a seal on the beach, “Call us,” says Dean.
The experts of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center – Dean and her husband Bob Schoelkopf, along with three technicians – are the only people in the state authorized to rescue, rehabilitate and release injured marine mammals. With 1800 miles of coastline, that’s an enormous job; annually, the Stranding Center picks up 150 to 250 animals, living and dead.
It’s also expensive: each rescued animal spends about six weeks in rehab, consuming an average of $1,500 worth of medicine and food (typically, flash-frozen squid, herring and other fish). The animals require almost constant supervision, but the results are impressive: about 90 percent of those found alive are nursed back to health and successfully returned to their habitat. Thanks to the center’s professionals, thousands of animals have been saved over the years.
With only five professionals on staff, who are also called on to help marine animals in other states, the Stranding Center relies on card-carrying volunteers to protect stranded animals from rubberneckers.
“If a seal strands in Sandy Hook, we can’t always send a tech to find out if it’s sick,” says volunteer and aquarist Maurice Tremblay, who’s attended numerous rescues and releases in his 10 years with the center. But when an animal appears to be in danger, a tech will be called to the site to check its vital signs: weight, breathing, eyes, demeanor, etc.
“You have to almost be a vet to do this,” says Dean. “John Q. Public can’t go out and make the assessment.”
Dean expects a rise in injured animals with the onset of gill-netting season, when dolphins, seals and other mammals are at greater risk of getting caught in the deep-set underwater nets.
“We’ll find animals on beaches with obvious net marks after fishermen cut them loose,” Dean says. While the fishermen don’t get in trouble for inadvertently netting sea mammals, she says, “Sometimes they just don’t feel like reporting them.”
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center also rescues sea turtles. Of seven species in danger of extinction due to loss of habitat, shrimp trawling, pollution, and hunting, four come into New Jersey waters from mid-May into November; the most common is the Atlantic loggerhead, which can grow to three feet long and weigh up to 400 pounds.
Other sea turtles common to the region are leatherbacks, Kemps Ridley turtles, and occasionally, green turtles.
As with seals, it is illegal to approach within 100 feet of a sea turtle in New Jersey. A sea turtle on the beach may be laying eggs; it is also illegal to disturb a sea turtle nest, take the hatchlings, or remove parts from a dead sea turtle.
If a sea turtle is obviously injured, it is permissible to cover its shell with a wet towel to protect it from the sun until an expert arrives.
For Stranding Center founders, love of wildlife became a mission
Sheila Dean’s life as a marine mammal expert began in unlikely fashion. The co-founder of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine is a lifelong animal lover. Though she did not formally study for her vocation, and didn’t even graduate from college, Dean decided on a career with marine mammals after seeing her first dolphin in the wild, when she visited the Bahamas after college.
Back home, Dean approached the owners of an aquatic show at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier. With no preparation, she talked herself into a job training dolphins and sea lions. When the attraction closed, she actually bought a 700-pound sea lion named Alfie and kept him in a lobster warehouse until she could find him a new home, at a zoo in Connecticut.
Alfie, she says, was “like a Labrador retriever, following me around.” After their visits, as she’d prepare to leave, the friendly giant would actually lean against Dean, pinning her to the wall to keep her with him.
These days, she’s careful not to form social bonds with the creatures in her care, knowing their very survival in the wild depends on their natural fear of people.
Visitors to the center can view the rescued animals “from a distance,” says Dean. “But we’re not here to make friends with them. We don’t want them to be accustomed to being around humans.”
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center is a non-profit private organization that depends for its existence on grants, donations and fundraisers, as well as its team of volunteers. For more information on summer programs for kids and adults, volunteer training, and intern programs, call 609-266-0538 or visit www.marinemammalstrandingcenter.org.
To get a glimpse at animals in residence, visit the center at 3625 Atlantic Brigantine Boulevard Sundays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The center is also open Saturdays. May 7-June 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Yes, you can help--from a distance
It’s illegal to approach a seal, sea lion, otter or other marine animal within 100 feet on a New Jersey beach, jetty or dock, and harassing them in the water is also against the law. The same applies to sea turtles, which are endangered. If you spot a sea animal that appears to be in peril, call the Marine Mammal Stranding Center at 609-266-0538.
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