Why You Should Never Pet Seal Pups Left Alone on the Shore?
Human intervention is often perceived as a threat to Mother Nature and rightly so. A 24-hour-old baby seal was rescued by experts from the Seabrook beach in New Hampshire in 2014. The Harbor seal pup was abandoned by its mother on the shore before the Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Mammal Rescue Team recovered the newborn to ensure its survival, per a Seacoastonline report.
The rescue team feared that the seal pup was left stranded on the beach because of close interaction with people and dogs. The baby mammal was found with several dogs and human footprints on the sand encircling it. As much as humans would like to salvage all forms of life, at times, it is best to let natural processes take over. Newborn seal pups require intense care from their mother and need to be nursed every few hours. Seals are semi-aquatic animals and usually come up to the beach shore to rest, nurse their babies, and bask in the warm sun. The pupping season starts in May and early June when there is a high chance of locals spotting seal pups on the beach.
However, a mother seal will most likely not accept her baby if she senses a threat, one of them being human interaction, according to the rescue team. In addition, seals are wild and dangerous with the potential to cause harm and damage to humans. To raise awareness and educate the local beachgoers, the rescue team also provided a helpline number and a few pointers to protect an abandoned seal or any marine mammal on the beach. Locals were advised to quietly watch the seal pup from at least 150 feet away and keep dogs away from the mammal. Offering any kind of food or water to the animal was strongly discouraged in addition to pouring water on it.
The rescue team asked the beachgoers not to cover the animal with a towel or blanket and to refrain from touching or moving the animal at all costs. For the rescued seal pup, the experts described the baby as healthy-looking but seemed hungry at first contact as it was crying out for its mother. The male harbor seal pup was measured as 72 centimeters long. However, the pup had little chance of survival if the team of experts had not intervened at the time. It was then transported to a rehabilitation facility at the National Marine Life Center in Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts, and kept under 24-hour observation for any complications.
“We monitored the pup before determining whether or not intervening was the best course of action. Our goal is always to give an animal the opportunity to return to its natural habitat, and in this case, to reunite with its mother during the early and critical bonding period,” said Ashley Stokes, the rescue team coordinator. If pups are interfered with during pupping season, their mothers abandon them before they are weaned, per a report by NOAA Fisheries. About 50% of pups reportedly do not survive their first year of life and there is not much humans can do to help besides rehabilitation when required. Besides that, infectious diseases are the most common cause of death in harbor seals, according to a study published in the journal National Library of Medicine.