Wild New Jersey Exclusive: Seals keeping Marine Mammal Stranding Center busy
Photo courtesy of Bill Schultz, Raritan River Keeper.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine has been busy this month with seal strandings up and down the New Jersey coast. Wild New Jersey's David Wheeler toured the center this past weekend, and longtime volunteer Maurice Tremblay provided fascinating insight into New Jersey's abundance of seals, whales, dolphins, and sea turtles. Click here to continue.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine has been busy this month with seal strandings up and down the New Jersey coast. Wild New Jersey's David Wheeler toured the center this past weekend, and longtime volunteer Maurice Tremblay provided fascinating insight into New Jersey's abundance of seals, whales, dolphins, and sea turtles. Click here to continue.
On the day of the tour, five harp seals were stranded along the Jersey coast. The good news is that many of the seals are able to be rehabilitated at the center and then released healthy into the wild. The center's release rate is nearly 90%.
Nonetheless, people shouldn't be fooled by the "puppy-dog eyes" of the seals. Only trained staff and volunteers can approach these wild animals.
"Seals have a vicious bite - not from malice, but because they're scared," said Tremblay. "They hang on like a bulldog."
Four different species of seals winter in New Jersey's waters, from the relatively common harbor seal to the less common gray, harp and hooded seals. Over a dozen dolphin and whale species are found here, and the sea turtles found in summer include the world's largest, the loggerhead turtle.
Many of New Jersey's stranded seals are victims of sharkbites, while for turtles, boats pose the primary threats.
"Turtles get tangled in nets and eat of lot of plastic from the water, but boats are the biggest threat," said Tremblay. "If you injure it's shell, it's like crippling the animal because that's their skeleton."
Founded in 1978, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center has responded to over 3,000 strandings up and down the Jersey coast, from Sandy Hook to Cape May to the Delaware Bayshore. More information can be found at www.marinemammalstrandingcenter.org.
Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 2/26/2009 2:45 PM 
Categories: WNJ Exclusives
Tags: Loggerhead turtle Marine Mammal Stranding Center Harbor Seal Seals
Categories: WNJ Exclusives
Tags: Loggerhead turtle Marine Mammal Stranding Center Harbor Seal Seals
A wonderful tribute to the valiant efforts contributed by the Center.
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Who is Maurice Findly? I think you are talking about Maurice Tremblay. The two most common seal in NJ are the Harbor and Gray and the Antic seal are the harp and Hooded.
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