It’s almost harbor seal season, and you can help keep them safe

Seattle’s Golden Gardens is one of the most popular places for harbor seals and their babies to hang out, and in late summer and early fall you might just be lucky enough to see one.

“Harbor Seals are the most common marine mammal that are found here in the Puget Sound,” says Rachel Mayer. “They are in the Puget Sound year round, they don’t go away anywhere else. Seals will have their pups towards the end of summer. That happens to coincide when people are out on the beaches. So it can become a problem when the seals, quite naturally, come up on the shore to rest. Which for them is not a problem, but people often see them and think that they need help just because they are out of the water.”

Rachel Mayer is the volunteer coordinator at Sno-King Marine Mammal Response, the people you’re supposed to call if you’re worried about any sea animals you might see washed up on the beach. But Rachel wants people to know that the harbor seals you see, sunning themselves on the sand, are generally just fine.

“Harbor seals actually spend about 50% of their time on land.”

Even if you see a baby harbor seal, away from its mother, they are also, most likely, just fine.

“Mom and pup are only together for one month. That’s the other reason people become concerned because the young seal is still very, very small and is very vulnerable. They’re only four to six weeks old but they’re on their own. It’s a really sharp learning curve. They have to learn how to find their own food, track it down, don’t get eaten by something else, get enough rest.”

The non-profit can get about 400 calls a month in late summer, from concerned citizens who see seals, and other animals, on the beach. So Sno-King Marine Mammal Response recruits on-call volunteers that they train and then send out to beaches to respond to the calls.

“We’re an all volunteer organization so we’re working essentially as volunteers through NOAA. We’re trained through NOAA protocols in the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. We will respond when there is a call about a marine mammal on the area beaches from downtown Seattle up to Kayak Point up in Snohomish County.”

Rachel says people often think they’re helping the seals when they move them, or pick them up and take them to a vet, but the only thing you’re legally allowed to do is leave them alone.

“We have cases of harassment where people will pour water on seals because they think that they need to be in water. Or people just simply getting too close. That’s counted as harassment. Basically, harassment is anything that’s going to change an animals’ behavior. It could be as simple as walking right up to it and getting a photo of it. If it turns and looks at you, that’s extra energy that they’re expending. The reason they’re on the beach is because they need to rest. That could be the difference between life and death. That’s important for their survival. People do try and feed them. Seals do know how to find their own food, they know what they need to eat. It’s not worth the heavy fines and it’s not worth you getting bitten. So really just leave them be.”

If you want to be a volunteer, there will be one more training session in June. Information is not up on the website quite yet, but keep checking back for more details.