Harbour Seals

Harbour Seal pup  (flickr.com photograph)

I know a little bit about seals so:

Let me tell you a story.  Every animal, every plant, every cloud, every sunny day and every person is unique.  You also know that Life tattoos a story we can feel - deep into our perceptions of this place and that our past colors how we see and experience everything that is around us.  So all I can tell you is my story and all you can hear is yours.   But somehow it is still worthwhile for both of us to speak, to listen and to share as it distracts our minds from everything that they can see and allows us to sense something beneath the words that touches our hearts and connects our souls.  That is the seed in the middle of the fruit, or I could say, and that is the intention in the middle of the miracle.

 Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina)

I worked at the aquarium when I was in university.  One of the things that used to happen every summer back then and still happens now is the annual appearance of solitary seal pups that need care and attention to survive their earliest glimpse of the world.  The gestation period for a common harbour seal is about 9 months and new-born seal pups stay with their mothers for a few months after that.  Shortly after giving birth to a single pup during late June to July harbour seals, including pups, remain on land through much of the process of molting.  This means that during the near post-partum period, females commonly leave their young pups on sandy beaches, while they hunt and forage.  They swim deep and long and hard through the sea seeking, pursuing and eating much of the food that their body needs in order to recover from birthing and to provide nutrition for themselves and their pup over the coming six weeks or so.  This intense feeding lays the foundation for blubber storage, fur replacement and milk production that will challenge their physical resources over many summer weeks.

A seals sensible act of leaving young pups on a sandy beach has proven to be unfortunate for many pups and their mothers over the years.  That is where the aquarium so often comes in.  Seal pups have oversized, wet-black, liquid eyes and skin-clean nostrils that close tight with black membranes together or alone.  Their “arms” and “legs” seem too short for our notion of a baby and the way they move and lie beached on their belly just in front of a rising tide makes an irresistible call toward our wish to help.  It is a physical trap for seals and an emotional trap for humans.  Seals need to be with their mothers and helping humans have no intention ever to harm or steal a pup.  So many ‘abandoned’ pups need help every year.  If they are left alone and unmarked by human scent a seal pup will likely be joined by its mother in a few hours.

Female seals and their pups will rejoin their colony together when the time is right.  It is no one’s fault really but many of the cute seal pups at the aquarium have been abducted rather than abandoned.  Most of us have experienced the panic of loosing a pet or something precious to us and even our own child for a moment, or a while, or forever?   I wonder how it feels for a mother seal to return to the silent memory of a pup she left on the beach hours ago.  It is so sad for me to know that for so many creatures the heartbeat of a mother and the scents of her new born are torn apart before the living tissue of independence begins to form between them.  I know that there can be a thousand reasons for early separation but none of them bring comfort to a vulnerable soul.

At the aquarium, we learned to tube feed older pups and those pups that just wouldn’t suckle.  The mixture depended on the age of the pup and I am sure that 40 years have brought many changes to the practice of feeding an orphaned seal.  Mostly we would add oil, protein, water, vitamins and sometimes antibiotics to finely blended herring.  A tube was carefully fed down a nostril a measured distance.  Then we would listen at the end of the tube to hear breathing sounds or stomach sounds.  That would tell us if the tube was down the trachea or the esophagus.  We were seldom really sure but very seldom made a fatal mistake.  Then we squeezed a rubber ball of our best-guess mixture down the tube and into the stomach of the baby seal.  Seals are hardy and most survived.  Some were released back to the wild and some stayed as display guests at the aquarium.

Seals seem hard wired to know how to take a herring head first and to snort and cough loose scales away when they grow up.  But no matter how young they came to us they seldom found any comfort with trainers or feeders as the years went by.  Many of the seals I came to know over the years I worked with them reminded me somehow of dogs that bite or nip in fear.  They did not like to be touched or patted and they could withdraw and extend their heads to inspect or bite with sharp teeth instantly and effectively.  I always respected them more than they let me like them.  I remember their lips, their cheeks, their whiskers beneath their large black liquid eyes and behind their strong fishy breath and their bodies are made to swim in cold water.

I truly know what it is to be taken from a mother before the miracle of healing their separation can occur.  As with many wounds, it may never really heal perfectly smooth, although, we do grow up and forgiveness can breathe life back into nearly anything.   One thing that I have learned to be in this life is a soother rather than a healer and that is probably one reason that this story is told the way it is

So I would be happy if someone told me:

If you ever see a young seal on the beach in June or July – don’t touch it or take it away without waiting a good while for its mother to return.  Watch from a distance and give it the room it needs to feel safe in the world.  If its mother has died or been killed then the little one can be rescued.  The word rescue is the key.  Sometimes it is very hard for a healer to watch.  You can learn to help and to take good care of these animals at the aquarium – even if you do not share the sentiments of other workers there.  I strongly believe that the relationship between a human and an animal is sacred and untouchable by others.

May everything that comes to life be blessed with knowing the feeling of joy…  I remember meeting an adult harbour Seal once in the wild at Galiano on an underwater reef in front of my parent’s home while SCUBA diving many years ago...  But that is another story. 

Harbour Seal Pup and Mother  (Garry McCarthy photograph, 2007)