By 7:30 a.m., the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society is already bustling. The morning sun pours in under the canopy tent as volunteers hose down rows of blue tubs, most holding a rescued harbour seal. As one pup wriggles and rolls in the spray, another attempts to suckle on the side of her tank. Others bark, mew and cry, sounds that in the wild help mothers identify their babies.
It’s mid-August, nearing the end of pupping season, and the rescue has more than 60 seals in its care. Most wound up here after becoming separated from their moms, unlikely to survive on their own. There’s Proteus, found emaciated at Holland Point Park in Victoria. Newborn Lily, found hidden beneath a dinghy at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. And Truffles, who was still wearing his lanugo coat of fine, soft hair when he was found — a sign he was born prematurely.
Though supported by the for-profit Vancouver Aquarium, the marine mammal rescue centre is a registered charity that relies on more than 230 volunteers to care for dozens of harbour seals and other rescued marine animals each year.
The seals are kept in individual tubs for at least two weeks after they first arrive at the rescue, in part as a quarantine measure to make sure they’re not carrying an infection they could pass to other seals. It also makes it easier to hand feed the pups. Most of the rescued seals are under five days old when they’re brought in, Lindsaye Akhurst, the rescue centre’s senior manager explains.
In the wild, pups will nurse for a month to a month and a half, gaining about 400 grams a day. At the rescue, where seals are tube fed a formula that approximates the fatty, nutritious milk of mother seals, it can take two-to-three times as long to gain that same amount of weight.
A baby seal named Proteus, who was found emaciated at a park in Victoria, plays in the spray from a hose as a Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue.
Five times a day, staff and volunteers wearing aprons and long rubber arm protectors lift each seal from its tub and place it on a cart. As a volunteer holds the seal still, a staff member inserts a long tube into the pup’s throat, listening at the other end as they guide it into its stomach. Using a large syringe, another volunteer pushes the formula into the seal’s stomach.
Tube feeding allows the team to know exactly how much food the seals are getting and it requires less handling, Akhurst says. Plus, “they’re not really good at suckling on bottles,” she adds.
For the first few weeks of their stay, seal pups are tube-fed a formula meant to approximate the nutritious milk of mother seals.
Once the seals are about three or four weeks old, they graduate to fish school. The rescue team slowly weans the pups from the formula and introduces herring into their diet, initially feeding the small, oily fish to the seals by hand until they’re confidently eating on their own. At that point, the seals are moved to a larger communal tank, where they interact with other seals and compete for food. They’re here until they weigh at least 23 kilograms and then if all goes well, they’re released back into the ocean.
Once hunted for their pelts, seal population on B.C. coast has rebounded
While the marine mammal rescue society responds to sea lions, sea otters, small cetaceans like dolphins and even sea turtles in distress, it’s mostly harbour seals that wind up here. There’s a healthy population of harbour seals on the south coast in areas that also have large populations of humans, Akhurst said. That can sometimes lead to conflict between people and seals. But it also means a seal in distress is more likely to get noticed and reported. And, “harbour seals are great candidates for rehabilitation,” Akhurst says.
She noted rescued seals regularly end up at the centre because of human interference. Sometimes moms are scared away from their pups by the big crowds of people at busy beaches other times seals have been brought in with injuries from boats. And, by caring for dozens of seals each year, the rescue centres team of staff and volunteers are also trained to respond to major environmental emergencies that humans sometimes cause — like oil spills.
Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society senior manager Lindsaye Akhurst says it’s always exciting to see rescued harbour seals released back into the ocean.
Harbour seals were hunted extensively for their pelts and bounties from the 1870s onward. By the 1960s the population in B.C. had declined sharply to an estimated 10,000 seals. After hunting was banned, the population recovered to more than 100,000 by the early 2000s. The latest estimates from 2019 peg the population at about 85,000, with the highest concentration of seals found in the Strait of Georgia, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Harbour seals feed on a variety of fish including pacific hake and herring. But it’s their predation of salmon that’s a source of concern for some, who worry seal populations are a significant hurdle to the recovery of declining salmon stocks. In recent years, Indigenous, sport and commercial fishing groups have urged Fisheries and Oceans Canada to open commercial seal hunting on the west coast to control the population.
A baby seal poses for a photograph at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue centre. Many of the harbour seals that wind up at the rescue arrive when they’re under five days old.
But some experts warn reducing seal populations may not be a panacea for the recovery of salmon, which are also threatened by extensive habitat loss, climate change and water pollution. Speaking to a 2023 parliamentary committee examining seal and sea lion management, Andrew Trites, a professor with the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, said seals are more likely to catch slow or diseased fish, which can make fish populations healthier. Biologist Kilian Stehfest, who worked for the David Suzuki Foundation at the time, told the committee seal predation of pacific hake, which in turn eat herring, could have indirect benefits for salmon, by leaving more herring available for juvenile salmon to eat.
A major decline in seal populations could also have consequences for threatened Bigg’s orcas, also known as transient killer whales. These orcas saw rapid population growth alongside the recovery of seals — their primary prey — between the 1970s and 1990s, according to the latest assessment by the scientific committee that advises the federal government on at-risk species.
Sea otters and injured seals face barriers to release
Baby seals typically spend about four to six weeks with their mothers before they learn to forage on their own. And even during those early weeks, mother seals will leave their babies for extended periods to find food. It’s this natural life history that makes it comparatively easy to rehabilitate baby seals for release.
Sea otters, by contrast, spend six to eight months with their moms, and for much of those early months, mothers cradle their pups on their bellies, briefly wrapping them in kelp to keep them safe while they dive for food. So when a sea otter pup comes into the rescue, it requires around the clock care: feeding every couple hours and frequent grooming. “You’re constantly handling them,” Akhurst said. But the rescue team can’t teach the young otters the survival skills they would have learned from their mothers in the wild, a major hurdle to their release.
A seal named Zeus (centre) watches curiously with another rescued seal from inside their enclosure as staff from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society conduct morning feeding. Zeus was one of the first pups rescued this year. He was found alone at a beach in White Rock and still had a piece of his umbilical cord and his lanugo coat, a sign he was born prematurely.
Once the seals are confidently eating fish on their own, they’re moved into communal pools where they interact with other seals and learn to compete for food.
There’s a surrogacy program in California where babies are paired with older otters to hopefully learn some of those skills, which can improve their chance of returning to the wild. “It’s a program we’d love to do at one point, but it’s very expensive,” Akhurst said. The rescue is a registered charity and while the Vancouver Aquarium covers a portion of its budget, it relies heavily on grants and other donations as well as a dedicated team of more than 230 volunteers to operate.
The rescue has a strong track record of rehabilitating seals, but every now and then a seal comes in with injuries so severe, it’s not possible to release them back into the wild.
Crinkle had to have one of her damaged eyes removed because it was bulging so much she couldn’t close her eyelid around it. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is still investigating Crinkle’s case, but it’s suspected she was shot with plastic bird pellet.
Crinkle was admitted to the rescue on July 21 with severe injuries to her face that left her blind. It’s suspected she was shot with plastic birdshot. “When you’re shooting an animal with birdshot pellets, that’s not to kill, that’s to maim — and it’s cruel,” Akhurst said.
Three weeks after she first arrived, the rescue had to surgically remove one of Crinkle’s damaged eyes: it was bulging so much that she couldn’t close her eye lid around it.
The procedure went well, and a week after her surgery, Akhurst was feeling cautiously optimistic that Crinkle would survive.
“She’s got a long road ahead,” Akhurst said. “We’re just hoping that she makes it at this point.”
The rescue centre will work with Fisheries and Oceans Canada on a plan for Crinkle’s future, but it’s unlikely she’ll be released back into the wild. More likely she’ll be placed at the aquarium or another accredited facility.
A spokesperson for the federal agency said it could not comment at this time as Crinkle’s case is still under investigation. But Akhurst is confident that most of the other seals recovering at the rescue centre will be released between late August and the end of November.
“They’ve made it through some big hurdles medically and physically,” Akhurst said, so to see them returned to the wild, “it’s always quite exciting.”
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After a few weeks of tube feeding, baby seals at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue centre graduate to fish school.
