Selkie the Seal goes home
Baltimore/Assateague (WHTM) It’s a day to celebrate on the beach at Assateague Island, Maryland.
Selkie the Seal is going home.
According to Margot Madden, Senior Biologist at the National Aquarium’s Animal Care and Rescue Center, they got word of Selkie from colleagues at MERR, the Marine Education, Research & Rehabilitation Institute in Delaware. “She was stranded up in Lewes, Delaware on February 10th. Our colleagues went out and assessed her. They agreed that she was a good candidate for rehab, so she was collected, and then Sulky ended up going down to our Ocean City triage center for the first 36 hours for stabilization and care before making the trek across the Eastern shore to Baltimore for long term rehab.”
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Selkie arrived at the Animal Care and Rescue Center on February 12. We met her on February 15th, while doing a story about the National Aquarium Animal Care and Rescue Center. She still had much of her baby fur, and was too young to survive without her mother.
But her mother was gone.
“Grey seal moms are really incredible mothers,” explains Margot, “And they stay with their young 24/7. So when a grey seal mom and club have been separated for an unknown reason, we usually are able to indicate that because if Mom’s not around, Mom’s not coming back.”
Inside the National Aquarium Animal Care and Rescue Center
“It took almost three months to get the maternally dependent seal ready for release. First, she needed medical attention. “Our veterinarian will do a physical exam. We will do a little blood work. We will also do different diagnostic testing, a set of radiographs, making sure everything checks out,” says Margot. “And luckily she didn’t have any ailments that we needed to treat.”
Up next – swim school. “We’ll start to introduce some shallow swim time, seeing how she does with that, assessing her skill set, swimming until she masters that. And then once she’s swimming well and she is getting a little rambunctious, we start to introduce what we call fish school. Most of these animals will need assistance understanding how to swallow. So our team here will be taking a couple of weeks, usually to teach the young independent pups how to swallow on their own. Once they master that skill set, they usually start to forage on their own. And once they are foraging well, and swimming well, then we look at their weight.”
You’re at the beach. You find a seal. What do you do? Some answers from ACRC.
“Our usual target goal is 50 pounds per our agreement with the government,” says Margot. (Seal rescues in the United States are managed by NOAA.) “But internally we do like to see them around 60 pounds,” adds Margot, “Just to give that little extra oomph to make sure that they have a little extra fat reserve for that acclimation period.”
When released on May 9th Selkie weighed in at 67 pounds.
The cage door was opened and – Selkie gave the matter some thought. This surprised nobody; Margot says the little seals can be a little hesitant when confronted by the big ocean.
National Aquarium Animal Care & Rescue Center – new arrivals
“We usually have a little harder of a transition back to the wild. Typically, it’s the first time they are reintroduced to the ocean. And sometimes as in this case, the first time ever experiencing what it’s like to swim out in the ocean. So we typically have a little bit more of a delay in their transition off the beach. But she did really well, as she went off after a couple of minutes of acclimation. She took off and she swam off well. “
Though she doesn’t realize it, Selkie is keeping in touch with her caregivers.
“She actually went out with a satellite tag, which we do not put on most of our animals because they’re expensive. But telemetry is becoming more and more of the kind of hot topic we deal with, being able to see where these animals are migrating to, what watershed they’re using, especially now with offshore wind, and being able to collaborate with them to be able to provide information of where these animals are going.”
Saving sea turtles at the Animal Care and Rescue Center
“Right now, she’s actually pinging off of New Jersey. So she has gone north, which is exciting, which is typically what they should be doing at this time of the year. Most of the seals start to migrate north around April and May. So she’s doing well, all the normal things, and her instincts have been kicking in nicely.”
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