Forget about Shark Week. This time of year is all about seal season.
The brightly colored seal that appeared on the sands of Coney Island on Wednesday is part of an annual wave of seal strandings in and around the New York area, experts told the Post.
“We consider this to be seal season, so typically we start to see more strandings in late January or early February, and we don’t really see an increase until March or April,” the institute said. said Jill Pryor, senior biologist at . The New York Marine Rescue Center explained.
She told the Post that local residents could continue to see stranded seals here and there until May.
The seal found at Coney Island turned out to be a harp seal. Pryor said the seals regularly descend into the waters around New York during the colder months.
Other common species are gray and harbor seals, both of which pupate in the winter and spring, Pryor noted.
“Many of them are much younger,” she said of the stranded seals.
“What we often see is puppies leaving on their own after being weaned from their mother (which happens after just three or four weeks), figuring out which beaches to visit.”
Three seals washed up on the Jersey Shore this week as well. NJ.com reported.
Two female seals, including one of the harp species, suffered severe injuries, and a male seal pup was weakened, the paper said.
All three were taken to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center for care.
It’s difficult to determine exactly how seals are injured, but seals have been known to hit the opposite side of boat propellers or sharks, Pryor said.
She said the latter evidence often looks like a stab wound, while boat injuries are more like horizontal cuts.
Harp seals especially enjoy eating snow and ice, so they can suffer from the effects of unseasonable temperatures.
“They’re going to come down here, it’s going to be too hot, and they’re going to start getting dehydrated,” Pryor explained.
If they do not find snow on the beach, they may begin to eat stones and sand, which may require medical intervention.
As for what people can do to keep stranded seals safe, Pryor warned beachgoers to stay at least 40 feet away from the seals.
“People sometimes don’t know what’s normal and what’s abnormal. It’s normal for them to be on the beach, just resting,” Pryor reassured.
She added that there are sometimes problems with people trying to take selfies with the seals or dogs without leashes getting too curious.
As for how to tell if a seal is safe or in distress, Pryor advised the public to notice a seal lying on its side with its hind flippers and head up.
Banana pose is a sign of good health, Pryor says.
“They have things like scars or other noticeable visual damage that we want to know about. Also, if the animal is lying on its stomach and not lifting its head much. Similarly,” she advised.
