By Jacqueline L. Urgo
INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
Why are
so many traveling so far south recently, exhausted in the surf? Biologists aren't
sure, but a Brigantine center tries to help. BRIGANTINE,
N.J. - Seal strandings have increased this winter along the Eastern Seaboard,
including the Jersey Shore, in what appears to be record numbers.
No one
is sure why so many seals - 31 in New Jersey and 65 on Long Island, N.Y., during
the first two months of the year - have been sighted.
Many are undernourished
pups, too weak to return to the surf once they have come ashore. Others are adults
that have been injured or have been attacked by parasites or bacterial infections.
And
all of them are in need of help, said Bob Schoelkopf, founder and director of
Brigantine's Marine Mammal Stranding Center.
While the seals are mostly
Arctic Sea dwellers, various species, including harbor, harp, hooded and gray
seals, have been migrating farther south in increasing numbers during the last
25 years.
Some biologists blame a lack of food in the seals' traditional
feeding grounds off Canada, which have been diminished by over-fishing. Others
say it could be a pattern of colder weather in New England during the last several
years. And some of the seals may just have run off course as they were heading
down from arctic waters, bound for Newfoundland.
Exhausted once they reach
the waters off New York and New Jersey, many wriggle onto the sand to dry off
and rest.
While some simply are tired, others are suffering from infections,
bites from other animals, or injuries from boats or fishing rigs.
That
is when Schoelkopf's center or the staff at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine
Research and Preservation on Long Island gets a call from residents, police officers
or the Coast Guard: One of the wide-eyed, dog-faced creatures has run aground.
"There
was once a time when you'd rarely have seen a hooded seal or a harp seal this
far south," Schoelkopf said. "Now it can be an almost daily occurrence."
In
fact, the Brigantine center has rescued four of the rarely seen adult harp seals
this winter. The silvery-white seals, which gain black and brown spots as they
age, can grow as large as six feet long and 300 pounds.
Currently, the
center is housing six infirm seals that will be returned the sea when they are
"fattened up" or recover from their illnesses.
At Riverhead, seal strandings
in 2001 are sure to exceed last year's total of 65. Thirty-two are in that center's
hospital, said Kim Durham, director of the marine mammal rescue program there.
Brigantine's
Schoelkopf said that at the rate seals were getting stranded on the Jersey Shore
this winter, the number probably would exceed the state's record of 76 in 1996.
There
were 26 seal strandings last year, 20 the year before, 42 in 1998, and 30 in 1997.
From
1975, when the Marine Mammal Stranding Center was founded, to 1988, the number
of seals found in distress along the Jersey Shore remained in the single digits.
The
shift in migration patterns has left Schoelkopf's center scrambling to meet the
demands of temporarily housing the seals while they are nursed back to health.
Feeding each of them can cost the center between $700 and $1,000 during an average
six-week stay.
Besides the daily upkeep, the influx of seals added to the
center's financial burden this year when $58,000 was needed to purchase a modular
building to house large holding tanks specially suited for the seals.
But
when the building arrived, Schoelkopf said, much of the structure was incomplete
or defective. Deep cracks are visible in the fiberglass, rendering the holding
tanks uninhabitable. While it pursues a lawsuit, the nonprofit center will have
to come up with more than $10,000 to pay for repairing the damage and completing
the work, he said.
In winter, an occasional dolphin or other mammal may
wash ashore, but usually the seals are the only animals that surface in large
numbers.
As seals continue to wash up, Schoelkopf warns that their bewhiskered
faces belie a grumpy disposition and harmful bite, and that neither humans nor
pets should approach one on the beach. |
