Seal Sitters and other volunteers clean Alki in honor of Sandy

Despite everything else happening on Saturday, more than 50 took time out to help clean up West Seattle’s busiest beach. From Seal SittersRobin Lindsey:

Seal Sitters teamed up with Alki Community Council and Seattle Parks to sponsor a cleanup of Alki Beach (and Constellation Park) in honor of seal pup Sandy who was found dead, entangled in derelict fishing line earlier this year. Fifty-one passionate people showed up, anxious to do their part to help protect sea life from the dangers of marine debris and trash. Peggy Foreman of NOAA talked briefly about marine debris and specifically about the stranded Arroyos gray whale whose stomach contents consisted solely of human trash.

While the beach did not appear to be as littered as usual on a summer Saturday morning due to a rather rainy Friday, the volunteers (20 Seal Sitters and 31 folks from the community, 6 of those minors) filled about 10 large trash bags. Armed with buckets, bags and grabbers, they picked up plastic bottles and caps, countless cigarette butts, and among other things a kayak paddle, a woman’s black and pink bra and dirty diapers. We even had a family drive all the way from Ellensburg just to pick up trash on the beach. Brooklyn, the “almost” 9 year old daughter, read about seals on our website, saw the post about Sandy and told her mom and dad that she wanted to come help seal pups by cleaning up the beach. We can’t thank everyone enough for helping out today. A minimum of 120 hours were donated this morning (we have not yet tallied the worksheets for an actual figure). All of these volunteers are a true inspiration!

Robin says the photo she shared shows “students from UW’s Environmental Studies program (Kim, Alex, Nick and Ana) who each donated over 3 hours of their time” on Saturday.

7 Replies to "Seal Sitters and other volunteers clean Alki in honor of Sandy"

  • miws July 22, 2012 (7:24 am)

    Thanks to Seal Sitters, and the other volunteers, for this clean-up effort, especially Brooklyn, and family that came all the way over from E-burg! That’s like, a 100 mile drive, each way, folks!

    .

    Mike

  • seewhatsealionsstart July 22, 2012 (9:30 am)

    All you people are awesome!

  • JN July 22, 2012 (2:30 pm)

    Awesome job you guys!

  • DBP July 22, 2012 (5:59 pm)

    Who’s the babe with the paddle?

  • kellymayk July 22, 2012 (7:55 pm)

    Thank you, volunteers! It’s an honor to have such caring people as my neighbors! (Next time I’ll join you!)

  • cambridgeliao July 23, 2012 (1:02 am)

    Oh, I am the guy in the picture who is in the yellow shirt. I want say my name is Cam rather than Kim. Can anybody change it? Not a big problem though lol!

  • Robin July 23, 2012 (7:48 am)

    Cam, so sorry about that! I will make the change in our blubberblog post!

    Seal Sitters so appreciates the supportive comments here in the blog. We’d like to remind everyone that harbor seal pupping season is in full swing in area rookeries. Seal pups could be showing up on our beaches any day now. So, please, if you come across a pup, keep people and dogs away and call our hotline @ 206-905-7325 (SEAL).

    Hope to see everyone at our next beach cleanup!

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