INTERNATIONAL SEAL DAY
- 12 hours ago
- 2 min read
Tavishi
Happy International Day of the Seal (March 22nd)! As y'all know, I love pinnipeds. Last year, I celebrated seal day by recapping the top seals of the 2024-2025 pinniped season, and thought I might do the same again this year.
DROPJE! Dropje was the first gray seal pup of the Zeehondencentrum Pieterburen gray seal rescue season. I LOVE Zeehondencentrum Pieterburen (they're in the Netherlands), and am a huge fan of the research they've done on pinniped epidemiology. Dropje was an abandoned pup, and rescued for malnutrition, and Being An Orphan. She was rescued very early into the seal pupping season, on November 7th 2025, and was recently released on March 1st, 2026.
This was her when she was first rescued:
As you can see, she is very little and small and baby-shaped. She is so young that her lanugo, or her baby coat, is stained yellow with amniotic fluid. This is what she looked like prior to release:
The Alaska Sealife Centre has a RINGED SEAL! I'm not sure what his name is, or more about his case other than that he wandered out of his range and was poorly. For epidemiology reasons, ice seals that are ever transported out of their range for rehabilitation and the like are immediately deemed nonreleasable. This seal is now going to have a permanent home at the ASLC! I don't know much more about him except for this.
SAMMIE THE SEAL! Sammie is a harbor seal that I GOT TO SEE (OMG) in LONDON at CANARY WHARF! It's so cool to know that the BIRTHPLACE OF CHOLERA now has native MARINE MAMMAL POPULATIONS? Holy ecosystem recovery. SEAL SEAL SEAL SEAL SEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL
In a similar vein to the ASLC, Marine Mammals of Maine had admitted a hooded seal to its care! Hooded seals are arctic seals, and it's very rare to see one so far out of its range. Generally, this sort of behavior indicates a pathology of some kind, and a pathology indeed it was. This seal had a GI infection, but was rehabilitated.
She was returned to the wild, but has a satellite tracking tag on her: https://my.wildlifecomputers.com/data/map/?id=69b02b47cd357610c40d7c25
Tracking tags are extremely non-invasive, and are glued to fur. The tags fall of during an eventual molt, and the glue doesn't pull on fur or anything.
I wish I knew someone who lived in Maine.
Also, the Weddell Seal Science lab monitors Weddell seal pup in Antarctica! I love Weddell seals so much that their trills are actually my phone ringtone.
Anyways, they do a fat pup competition. This is Corndog, my favorite pup of the season:
Also, in the UK, the RSPCA does a lot of seal rehabilitation. 2 of my favorite seals this season were Mould Spore and Smog at RSPCA Mallydams Wood. These seals are incredible. Gotta love the names.
It is late and the Jet Lag has got me, so good night. Stay on the pinniped trail or something, idk. [inspiring words]
Jokes aside, happy International Seal Day to the animals that I would not be the same without, and that make life worth living. <3
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