Late fall of 2011, Ethan Janson of Three Tree Point in Des Moines (Washington) noticed that seal pups were using his windsurf board tethered offshore as a haulout.

One morning before dawn, he attached a remote camera with video capability. Ethan writes Seal Sitters: It took me awhile, but I finally put together a short video of the seal pups on my windsurf board one morning in the fall 2011. It had rained that morning, making the board extra slippery! I mounted the remote GoPro camera to the board before dawn. This footage takes place over a period of about 30 minutes, sometime during the first couple hours after sunrise.

View this fantastic video above. Clips from Ethan’s video aired on both CNN and Good Morning America yesterday - congrats to Ethan for making our Puget Sound surfing seal pups media sensations!

Seeing a number of seal pups struggle to share the small board, Ethan and his neighbor Ron decided to build a platform for seals and contacted Seal Sitters for advice. We put him in touch with wildlife raft guru Guy Smith (who built the first platform south of Alki Beach), who generously offered sage help and detailed instructions. In the spring of 2012, they established an offshore platform at Three Tree Point which is used regularly by seals of all ages.

If you’d like to build a platform for wildlife, please contact us. Since seals spend 50% of their time resting and warming up, platforms provide safe alternatives to beaches crowded with people and dogs.

PUPDATE:
Surfin’ seal pups video has exceeded one and a half million views on YouTube and Ethan appeared on Channel 5’s Evening Magazine last night.

Tags: surfin seal pups