Seal pupping season now underway on Washington's outer coast
May/25/15 08:00 PM
Seal Sitters has also received a report of a live lanugo birth in a South Puget Sound island rookery. Inside the womb, pups have a wavy white coat known as lanugo. For a full-term pup, this long fur is shed before birth. If a pup is born prematurely (with a partial or full lanugo coat), his muscles and lungs will not be fully developed and survival rate is extremely low. The amount of lanugo fur indicates the stage of prematurity.
The photo shown here is of lanugo pup Luigi, born last June on West Seattle’s Alki Beach. A man with a dog was on the beach next to the pup when Seal Sitters first responders arrived. After convincing him he was jeopardizing the survival of the pup, responders cleared the beach and established an extensive tape perimeter, restricting access to the area in hopes that the pup’s mom might return. She was not seen again. A full month premature and weighing only 5.5 kg, she had to be humanely euthanized after 2 days.
At the South Puget Sound rookery on Saturday, WDFW’s marine mammal biologist reports that a boat full of people illegally breached the closed harbor, speeding toward the seal colony where this latest lanugo pup had just been born. The frantic seals were scared from the haulout, leaving the premature pup alone. It is assumed the pup died due to abandonment. Photos of the boat with license number and occupants have been sent to NOAA’s Office for Law Enforcement (OLE) for investigation. If you witness harassment of seals or other marine mammals, a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, please call the OLE Hotline at 1-800-853-1964.
PLEASE, stay back from harbor seal haulouts, where seals gather in numbers - especially during pupping season, now through the end of October in Washington State! It is truly a matter of life and death for seal pups. Observe quietly from a distance. For a map showing pupping timeframes in various parts of the state, click here.
