Seals Released At Sandy Hook Beach Wednesday

SANDY HOOK GATEWAY NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, NJ - Volunteers with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center released six seals back into the Atlantic Ocean Wednesday from a beach at Sandy Hook. The Stranding Center spent the past eight weeks rehabilitating the seals at their headquarters down in Brigantine.

The seals were either sick or injured when they were found on New Jersey beaches, said Bob Schoelkopf, the Center's director. One was attacked by a shark; the little male seal pup was found wounded and bleeding on the beach in Manasquan and brought to the center on March 26.

"It had deep lacerations that had to be sutured shut and there was a bone in the slipper that was exposed," said Schoelkopf. (For that story and photos of the seal, go here.) However, happily he made a full recovery and was released back into the water yesterday.

Other seals hauled out of the water simply because they were sick, Schoelkopf said; some had respiratory infections, another had tapeworms. Volunteers and staff at the Brigantine Center nursed them back to health. There are still currently about 15 more seals at the center, he said, including one found at Barnegat Light this month. It had been hit by a motorboat propeller in Barnegat Bay and had to have its left flipper amputated.

Although the seals were found up and down the coast, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center chose Sandy Hook because it's the farthest point north where they can drop the seals, and some of them may want to swim back to colder waters off Cape Cod, Schoelkopf explained.

"We do a lot of seal releases and we try not to advertise too much where it's happening in advance," he said. "We don't want crowds."

And a day's work is never done: On their way back down to Brigantine Thursday, the volunteers had to stop off in Spring Lake, where a large adult male seal had come ashore on the beach.

"He was aggressive and he will bite," Schoelkopf said. "We did not want folks knowing about that one."

All photos taken by Scott Longfield, one of the volunteers at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.