2 Seals Spotted in Middletown, 1 in Island Beach State Park This Week

Middletown, NJ - New Jersey's Marine Mammal Stranding Center has responded to three calls about seals spotted along the Jersey Shore in the past two days, and two of those calls were in Middletown.

People called in to report seals on the beach in Belford; in Middletown (possibly Port Monmouth); and in Island Beach State Park Monday and Tuesday of this week, Bob Schoelkopf, founder and director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, told Patch.

Volunteers always respond to seal sightings, he said, but usually, by the time they arrive, the animal has jumped back into the ocean and cannot be found.

Early spring is not at all an unusual time to see grey seals sunning themselves on Monmouth County and Jersey Shore beaches, Schoelkopf said. And a seal spotted lying on the beach does not necessarily mean it is injured, he added.

"What you're seeing on the beaches right now is 2-month-old grey seal pups," he said. "They were born in February and they swam down here in search of food. The problem is they're still too young to know how to really catch a lot of fish, so they're not fat enough. They're thin, and because of that, they get cold in the water. So they haul themselves out occasionally to warm themselves in the sunlight."

"There is usually nothing wrong with them; they are just getting some sunshine," he said. He said it's still a good idea to call 911 if you come across a seal, because it may be injured, but warns people to keep their distance from a seal found on the beach.

The baby seals, which need about 6-8 pounds of fish a day to survive, will quickly learn how to hunt better — or die.

"It's either learn how to eat or die. Or become shark food. And there are plenty of sharks out there right now looking to eat seal pups," Schoelkopf said, adding that it's not uncommon to find one of grey seals' greatest predators, great white sharks, off the coast of New Jersey. "We've definitely had 3,000-pound sharks in this area."

"We've seen an absolute boom in the seal population: The grey seal population has tripled in the last 30 years," he said.

Grey seals are born in much colder climates: Canada, Maine and Massachusetts, he said. After they are weaned from their mothers, they follow the currents south to New Jersey, where they learn to hunt and catch herring in the waters of Raritan Bay and off Sandy Hook.

The seals will stay here until the herring, their primary food supply, migrates back north, up to Massachusetts. They will follow, he said, which explains why seals are rarely seen in the summer, when millions of visitors descend on the Jersey Shore.

Volunteers with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center did drop three seals back in the water Monday in Sandy Hook. Those seals were injured and were rehabilitated at the non-profit center's headquarters down in Brigantine.

Stock image of a grey seal pup/Wikimedia Commons