‘Keep them wild’: Rehabilitated pups reintroduced to Whidbey beach

WHIDBEY ISLAND — Foggy trees across the harbor made the horizon of Windjammer’s City Beach on Monday morning. The pool-still water matched the gray of the sky. The only sounds were distant gull calls and the hum of traffic when the SR3 ambulance pulled up.

That’s why Casey McLean, executive director of Sea Life Response, Rehabilitation and Research, chose the location to release three rehabilitated seal pups. Windjammer Park is calm and uncrowded, within 30 miles of where each of the pups were rescued and other seals frequent its waters which help guide the pups once they make it back into the water.

The ambulance doors opened wide, releasing a foul, wet-dog stench. Interns heaved the crates of harbor seals one at a time, placing them side-by-side on the sandy floor. As this happened, a wild seal passed through the water in front just as McLean predicted.

It was a joyous day, the result of rescue and rehabilitation — release, but more than that, success.

It had been a long journey for the three pups: Gnome from Ferndale, Kelpie from Blaine and Hippogriff from right here on Whidbey.

Rehabilitators know the seals are ready to be released when they have been off medication for two weeks, feed on their own in SR3’s pool and, per National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regulation, are at least 20 kilograms.

Garry Heinrich, stranding response coordinator for the Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network, received a call about three months ago when two people were carrying Hippogriff near Nichols Brothers Boat Builders in Freeland. He watched her for three days, hoping her mother would return. When Hippogriff was still alone after the third day, Heinrich connected the pup to SR3.

Mother harbor seals will abandon their pups before returning to a beach with heavy human traffic, McLean said.

“Adults are extremely skittish, so you have to almost clear the beach before she’ll come back for that pup,” she said.

On Alki Beach, near SR3’s Des Moines base, odds are the adults will never return, she said. On Whidbey, they have a chance. Stranding network volunteers wait at least a day for the adult to return after seeing a pup.

A skinny pup with visible ribs or wounds is a clear sign it has been abandoned, McLean said. They won’t survive on their own, and they could be sick. Never touch them. Instead, call the stranding network.

“They’re wild animals,” McLean said. “We want to make sure we keep them wild.”

Once the interns unlatched the kennel gates, the seals inch-wormed to the water, where they splashed around and became accommodated in the shallows. Each wore little numbered hats which would fall off and degrade with time, McLean said. The seals also had orange tags on their back flippers, which won’t fall off. SR3 uses these to keep track of the seals and monitor their long-term health.

Seal strandings are relatively common, she said. The organization has rehabbed 49 this year.

“They’re out trying to catch the 50th,” she said.

If a stranded marine mammal is found, alive or dead, call the Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1-866-ORCANET and follow the prompts to report the animal.

This story originally appeared in the Whidbey News-Times, a sister publication to The Herald.