Friday 17 April 2009

Zeehondencreche Pieterburen: getting close to seals ...

On Easter Sunday, after leaving the island, we made our way to the Zeehondencreche (Seals hospital) in Pieterburen, close to Groningen. On the way we were enchanted to discover the open shop of a goat farm, where we tasted and bought different goat cheese sorts-yummy...

After some more km we could say face to face hello to the seals taken care of in the hospital. Most of them are still babys (between 4 and 8 months old) and because of their age their imun system is not strong enough to fight the so called "lungworm"- a virus an adult seal would not get. Due to the increased environmental polution seals get also more often sick in the last years. In 2008 the hospital received 242 patients, which without any help would otherwise die. A team of professional doctors and researchers take care of the weak animals before they are again realeased into the wild.
Another project of the Zeehondencreche Foundation is the collection of fishermen nets from the sea. Till now they have gathered a small mountain of 500 000 t, which are a danger for seals and birds if left in water...

According to the last count there are 3400 seals who relax and live around the sandbanks in the Netherlands! It would be lovely to keep them in the future, but its a big challenge with all the negative effects of the human+industrial activities around....

4 comments:

WebbieLady said...

That is news to me. I thought European waters or environment are always cleaner.

Could you touch these seals? Did you touch one of them? Hmmm.. I never saw a real one yet.

Jana said...

Dear Webbielady,
one is not allowed to touch them, just to "touch" them with the eyes...as they are sick and weak animals...and should not be disturbed...but u can watch them from 1 m distance, which is already amazing!

Jana said...

and back to your first point, WebbieLady,the Dutch waters are ones of te most poluted in Europe due to the industry and trnasport activities on water here...thats why seals have hard times living here...I do understand them choosing to leave up north as this is really the quiet part of NL...

Webbielady said...

aH NO! no! I do want to touch them... ^^

I see, so they are really sick if that is the case... poor creatures.

By the way, no chance to go to Sassenheim yesterday. As I was HERE enjoying the works of Dutch masters. :)