Seal sanctuary
October 25, 2009
The island of Texel just off the northern coast of Holland - near the Wadden Sea - is mainly known for its sheep. However, it also hosts to many other species of wildlife, including seals.
It's also home to the wildlife sanctuary Ecomare, which draws about 300,000 visitors each year, making it one of the island's most popular attractions. The center looks after birds affected by oil spills and other disasters and seeks to educate people about the Wadden Sea and North Sea environments - but it's the seal sanctuary that is at the heart of Ecomare's work.
"We started this center in 1952," said Saldo de Wolf, who has been working at Ecomare for 20 years. "Every sick seal that we found we kept here and didn't release because they were still hunting seals in Holland until 1962."
In the late 1960s and 1970s, due to high levels of pollution in the Netherlands, unhealthy seals were housed permanently in the shelter instead of being sent back into the wild.
Currently, 70 of the seals brought to the sanctuary during that period are still there. Their offspring are released to the sea once they are old enough.
Around 7,000 common seals and 2,000 gray seals currently live in Holland, said de Wolf. Ecomare is usually alerted to sick seals by passers-by, police officers, or people who work at the beaches. When Ecomare gets a call about a seal, staff members pick the animal up, look after it until it returns to health, then release it back into the wild.
An orphanage for seal pups
During the seal breeding seasons, some pups can become separated from their mothers and Ecomare often takes in these lost animals. Since seal species breed at different times of the year, the work load is well distributed.
"The gray seals have their young in the winter and the common seals have their young in the summer, so there are two times a year when we have young animals coming in," said Henriette de Waal. "There are about 40 or 50 each year - and that's only the area around Texel."
Newly arrived seals are kept in quarantine for a few weeks, during which any illnesses are treated and the animals are weighed and closely observed.
Despite two recent seal virus epidemics, the seal population in the Wadden Sea area has been recovering. Each year Ecomare returns about 30 or 40 animals to the wild after nursing them back to health - but that's not something to take for granted.
"Nature is very unstable, so you have to really take care to make sure everything goes well," said de Waal. "If it's not in balance, then it can turn the other way."
Author: Barry Mckay (kjb/cn)
Editor: Kyle James