Wildlife Rescue of Spotted Seal Pups Draws Attention of CBCGDF:Don’t crowd around them, shoo them away, feed them, and more!
2023/2/28 16:09:00 本站

Spotted seals are listed as the 1st class of nationally protected animals in China. Recently, spotted seals are going through their farrowing period in Liaodong Bay of Bohai Sea. Many seal pups are still covered in their fetal hair and not good at swimming. Some of them appear on sea ices or shores because they are worn-out and in need of rest or stranded due to the fall of tides.

Following a healthy Seal pup appeared in Qinghuangdao and later sent to an ocean park on February 23rd, a second case was reported by CBCGDF volunteers who experienced almost the same “rescue” story. Which, according to the CBCGDF’s scientists, may not be a good practice. Probably they were left there by the female Seals who were temporarily away for foods.

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In the morning of February 26th, a seal pup with its fetal hair all over the body appeared on Beidaihe Beach of Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province. It was so cute that a large group of people crowded around it. Eventually, the pup was sent to a local aquarium for “rescue”, and related parties said that they would let it go back to nature when appropriate. On the very same day, another spotted seal pup was found on the beach of Juehua Island, which is located in Xincheng, Huludao City, Liaoning Province. Warm-hearted locals posted that on Douyin (TikTok) and made contact with Tang Zailin, who’s also the director of CBCGDF’s Community Conservation Area (CCAfa) for Spotted Seals in Dalian and vice chair of Dalian Environmental Protection Volunteers Association. Fortunately, that baby seal was rescued by Liaoning Ocean and Fisheries Science Research Institute. However, people were concerned that there would more incidents like this because of the current weather. Floating ices are breaking up, so pups born on the broken ices are more likely to get lost and end up on the beach because of tides or because they have not grown strong enough to swim in the ocean.

 

Liaodong Gulf spotted seals are also named as West Pacific spotted seals. It is the only kind of pinniped mammal that can breed in the Chinese sea areas and it is listed as the national A-level protected marine wild animal. In China, it is mainly distributed in Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea, and occasionally in East China Sea and South China Sea. They give birth in winter and are classified as cold-water marine mammal that deliver on the ice. The icing area in Liaodong Gulf is the southernmost among their eight breeding areas all over the world and the only one in the Chinese sea areas.

 

Some expressed their concerns that the crowd might scare these cute precious pups or they might end up in institutions such as aquarium or marine zoo. After such buzz, will they make it back to the ocean or fall into the wrong hands and be used to make money? And they have every right to worry about that. The case of illegal hunt of spotted seals on Changxing Island back in 2019 is still fresh in our memory, in which 100 pups were hunted and 29 of them were scared to death when seized. As recorded in Spotted Seals on Broken Ices by the CBCGDF, this caused the largest population of spotted seals in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea in China to drop by nearly half in 2019. According to reports made back then, commercial aquariums and ocean parks were the major buyers of the hunted seals.

 

In order to protect this rare and endangered species, we need to make joint efforts. Spotted seals belong to the ocean and it the best for those baby seals to get back to their natural homes as soon as possible. Tang Zailin, who is experienced in the rescue of marine animals, called on everybody to rescue animals in a scientific and ethical way. If more pups are found onshore, we should not crowd around them, get too close to them, feed them, shoo them away or send them to commercial or exhibition facilities, such as aquariums and marine zoos as the first choice. It is advisable to observe from distance and if they are not injuries, they will swim back to the ocean after the tide rises again.

 

According to Jinfeng Zhou, Secretary-General of the CBCGDF, this case also shows the urgency of establishing Community Conservation Areas (CCAfa), which serves as an important tool to “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs). In this case, the place is not among any protected area set up by the government, but 2 occurrences of spotted seals no doubt show its ecological importance. On February 28th, the Beijing-based conservation group has sent an official letter to competent authority, urging scientific and nature-based rescue measures.

 

Original report available:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VQK1cF1DcXvOxosSP4HMgg

 

Translator: Victoria Sheng

Editor: Linda Wong

Contact: v10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776

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