(Photo by Brad Long)
The recently relaunched Joy D. Smith Wildlife Raft played host to a seal pup for a while this morning. But such refuges are few and far between, and many more of them wind up on our beaches this time of year, as we have reported previously. If you keep an eye on Seal Sitters’ Blubberblog updates, you’ll learn exactly how hectic that can be – four pups on West Seattle beaches in just one day earlier this week, for example. During a morning walk on Harbor Avenue this past Monday, we spotted two areas cordoned off for pup protection, almost adjacent to each other. And volunteers asked us to remind you that observing the city’s law against dogs on beaches – leashes or not – is vital this time of year; even if you think your canine companion would never hurt a flea, they can be unpredictable, and even if they’re not too close, they might frighten the pup back into the water, where it will either have trouble finding its mom (who left the pup on the beach so she could find food) or will burn up more of its still-scarce energy stores swimming when it needed to rest … check this yawn:

(Photo by ALAN BERNER/SEATTLE TIMES; republished with permission)
That photo accompanied a story earlier this week by our partners at the Seattle Times. If you see a seal or other marine mammal on a beach – again – don’t get close; report it to Seal Sitters, at 206-905-7325 (905-SEAL).