This article was written for Sandy's talk at Sound Waters 2009, but provides relevant background material. This year Sandy will give a 3 hour class on Marine Mammal Stranding.
Learn about the natural history of our local marine mammals, whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions. Learn how we are negatively affecting their habitat and why they are stranding on our beaches. Instructor Sandy Dubpernell has been collecting data on stranded marine mammals for the National Marine Fisheries Service/ NOAA since 2002.When a Coupeville deputy marshal found a five-day-old harbor seal in the back of a car he had stopped last July, it set off alarms throughout the Puget Sound region. Interfering with marine mammals is a violation of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, pointed out Sandy Dubpernell, principal investigator of the Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Act. The penalties can include steep fines and jail time.
While the couple who “rescued” this seemingly abandoned baby from the waters of Penn Cove may have thought they were aiding a helpless creature in distress, they likely condemned it to death. The circumstances often are not as they appear. The mother seal probably was hunting for food and would have returned to care for the pup if humans had just left it alone.
The harbor seal that was recovered in Coupeville was badly dehydrated when removed from the car and died days later at the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Friday Harbor.
Sadly, it’s a variation of a story Dubpernell hears all too often. People mean well but do all the wrong things in their effort to give nature a hand.
