Everyday Heroes Rescue Hundreds of Seal Pups
Image Credit: Clive Matthews, SPCA
Last month saw a record number of baby seals washed up on the Western Cape coast.
High seas and wild winds caused the pups to literally get blown off the rocks and into the stormy ocean, putting the babies in danger and disrupting the end of pup season.
Earlier this week we wrote a piece on California’s elephant seal pup season entitled “New Year, New Elephant Baby Seals!” and you should definitely check it out.
Rescuers and volunteers had to return hundreds of the pups to their “nursery” of sorts.
Professor Les Underhill, of the University of Cape Town’s department of biological sciences, said that the sheer number of pups was so high this time of year because seals give birth in a “remarkably short period in early December”.
One volunteer from the National Sea Rescue Institute used a Jet Ski to return 117 seal pups to islands near Koeberg Nature Reserve over the weekend.
117!
Here’s another example of every day heroes: on New Year’s Day two fishermen used their boats to help the SPCA return 82 seal pups to Seal Island, in False Bay. The SPCA’s Allan Perrins said the fishermen had told him that it was “good to give back to the sea”.
Cheers to you, friends, for showing us what it means to be conservation conscious.
