INTERNATIONAL SEAL DAY

Tavishi

Today, March 22, is one of my favorite days of the year: it is International Day of the seal! And, as any past readers of this blog know, seals are my favorite animals.

Technically, my favorite animals are pinnipeds, which is the clade of seals, sea lions, and walruses. The family phocidae comprises of the earless seals, or true seals. The family otariidae consists of eared seals, or sea lions and fur seals. And finally, the family odobenidae is now only one extant species: the walrus.

The word seal can be used to refer to both pinnipeds as a whole and phocids. But today, in honor of International Seal Day, I choose to interpret seal to define the entire clade. I will, instead, discuss some of the Seals of All Time™.

This blog post is really just me talking about my favorite seals.

First, Ukiaq, a silly little walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) pup rescued by the Alaska Sealife Center in July 2024. Ukiaq was found stranded, starved, dehydrated, and weak; most importantly, without her mother. An orphaned walrus pup is rare because of the sheer amount of maternal care required to care for a walrus pup. Whereas most pinniped pups wean rather quickly, walruses stay with their mothers for nearly two years, in stark contrast to the 4 day lactation period of the hooded seal.

But because of the strong social demands of a walrus pup, Ukiaq required around the clock cuddling and care. The absolute diva needed someone to be there at all times for her to sleep on and play with. Absolute DIVA.

lil baby diva

However, because Ukiaq was so young, she was unable to gain the survival skills necessary for her to survive in the wild, and rather, was deemed nonreleasable. Ukiaq now lives in Seaworld Orlando.

Next, Harsolo, a harbor Sseal pup rescued by the Marine Mammal Center in 2023. Just like Ukiaq, Harsolo was an abandoned and orphaned pup. Harbor seal maternal separation is far more common than walrus pup maternal separation, because humans are often much closer to harbor seal pups than walrus pups. Human interaction with pups is credited to nearly 2/3rds of all seal pup stranding cases.

Harsolo was in the Marine Mammal Center for three months, and made a speedy recovery!

Next, Kiwi, yet another harbor seal pup, but this time, rescued by Zeehondcentrum Pieterburen (Netherlands!) Kiwi was rescued twice by the center in one year: first, for maternal separation, and then, for lungworm.

Kiwi was a tiny spiky lil creature when he first arrived because of his lanugo:

The second time Kiwi was brought to the center, he was an older pup:

Kiwi was recently released and brought back to the Wadden Sea!

Schaaf is also another one of my favorite pinnipeds of all time. Schaaf was an adult Northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) rescued by the Marine Mammal Center in 2019, and quickly released nearly a month later.

Schaaf was found to have domoic acid toxicosis, which is rather rare in his species. It's also pretty rare to have Northern fur seals coming all the way down from their subarctic range to California.

Either way, Schaaf is a silly guy and I appreciate that.

Also, Chappy quickly gained my love after being rescued from the streets of New Haven, Connecticut earlier this year. Chappy was suffering from pneumonia and mesenteric torsion, and unfortunately, passed away shortly after his rescue. Although treatment was initially promising, his internal trauma was too severe to heal.

Finally, we end the post on yet another sad note: Malama. Malama was a Hawaiian monk seal (Neomonachus schauinslandi) rescued by the Marine Mammal Center in fall 2022. She was malnourished, but was rehabilitated and released back into the wild in early 2023.

Later that year, I was astonished to discover that this seal whose progress I'd tracked but a few months ago had died a painful and violent death at the hands of an apathetic human. Despite the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Malama was beaten to death.

Unfortunately, humans have a tendency to see wildlife as ornaments or entertainment, failing to take their well being into consideration, but instead, acting with rage, violence, and fascination. International Day of the Seal is intended to commemorate pinnipeds, but moreover, to inspire us, as people, to conserve the species by treating nature with respect and kindness.

Although not all unfortunate events to pinnipeds are intentionally meant to cause harm, we are at fault for the endangerment of pinniped species like the Hawaiian monk seal, Mediterranean monk seal, Australian sea lion, and more.

We caused the problems, and now, the onus is on us to fix it.