Seal Sitters update: Training tomorrow; no pup proliferation yet

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We mentioned this briefly earlier today, but wanted to give it a more prominent shoutout: West Seattle’s Seal Sitters, who keep watch to protect baby seals whose moms leave them on local beaches while off hunting, have another volunteer-training session tomorrow night; we noted a decent turnout for their first one last month, which happened on a weekend afternoon — this time, it’s at night, 7-9 pm tomorrow at Alki Community Center, all welcome. When Janette Wilson from the Seal Sitters called WSB this afternoon to remind us about this, we asked how seal-pup season was going so far, and she admitted they’re “a little worried” — they’ve only responded to one pup sighting, a dramatic difference from last year, when things started getting busy in August. But she also noted that the chum run is yet to arrive, and that may bring some pups, so they want to have a full volunteer corps ready. If you want to find out more before showing up for tomorrow’s session, there’s contact info on the Seal Sitters‘ site.

lina September 9, 2008 (8:06 am)

i too have noticed a lack of pups on the beach and was wondering if this was my imagination or if it was indeed late this year. i hope it is just due to late chum and nothing else harmful-
thanks for helping to keep us up to date wsb- this is one of my favorite things about living in west seattle- yay urban wildlife!

Kevin September 9, 2008 (11:47 am)

We saw what look like a dead pup on the shore at Lincoln park a couple of weeks ago. We tried to report it, but got a run-around from various phone numbers

JumboJim September 9, 2008 (11:56 am)

As an avid birder I know that productivity among birds varies widely from year to year. It could be the same with the seals. If and when biologists first detect real downward trends then problems will need to be addressed. Let’s hope this doesn’t become the case.

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