EDMONDS — As she sat in a fold-up beach chair watching over the newly arrived visitor, Joy Lynch marveled at how much the gray, spotted baby harbor seal blended into its surroundings.
“A lot of people have walked by and not seen him,” Lynch said.
The harbor seal came ashore at Olympic Beach early in the afternoon Tuesday. Lynch, an Edmonds Seal Sitter, was on the scene within minutes.
Her job is to make sure other people don’t interfere with the young seals, which come to Edmonds beaches now and then for a rest or to warm up.
“It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it,” Lynch said.
As a crowd gathered, Lynch and Seal Sitters founder Susan Morrow answered people’s questions about seals in general and this seal in particular.
Morrow, 54, has worked since 2005 as one of the city’s six beach rangers, who go to area schools to teach kids about marine animals and ecology. They also patrol the city’s beaches to make sure marine animals such as seals are treated with respect.
She started Seal Sitters last year when she realized that, though the beach rangers season is from March through Labor Day, seal pups show up at all times of the year, usually from July to February, but most often from September through the end of the year.
The pups nurse four to six weeks before they’re weaned off their mother’s milk.
“They get very rich milk,” Morrow said. “So that when the mother does wean them, they’ve got a lot of reserves so they can catch on and really learn how to hunt for themselves.”
She trains volunteers, who range from 18-year-olds to senior citizens, on the basics of pup protection and marine ecology. The group, which has responded to 20 seal arrivals so far, has 18 members. Local 911 dispatchers know to call them.
“Our number is posted at the ranger’s station near the fishing pier and near the ferry terminal,” Morrow said.
When a call comes in, she arrives at the beach first and then calls volunteers.
Adult seals are wary of humans and seek isolated beaches, but the pups don’t know any better, Morrow said.
Seal pups may look cute, but it’s important to leave them alone, she said. Federal law makes it a crime to interfere with marine mammals.
“Human interference is a very bad thing,” she said. “Some people, their good intentions get the best of them and they want to put water on them or feed them or take them home and put them in the bathtub.”
About five hours after the pup, whom they named Bart, washed up on the shore, its mother arrived to retrieve her little one.
“That turned out to be just about perfect,” Morrow said.
Some people are natural seal sitters, like Naz Buksh of Shoreline. In 2008 she was at the Edmonds fishing pier at Olympic Beach and came across another resting pup.
Last summer, Buksh said, she and some friends found a seal lying on the beach. So she and her friends made a “keep away” sign from a pizza box and posted it next to the seal.
“We spent, like, four hours standing there, trying to keep people from getting too close,” she said.
Oscar Halpert: 425-339-3429, ohalpert@heraldnet.com.
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