The Irish Seal Sanctuary was set up over twenty years ago to rescue and rehabilitate Irish marine wildlife, mainly the two breeds of seal found in Irish waters, the grey seal and the common seal.

Common Seals and Grey Seals

• Common seals are smaller, have a more rounded face and are less aggressive than grey seals, which are generally hardier animals all round.
• Grey seals are born with a white coat, known as a lanugo, which they lose after 3 or 4 weeks. The common seal’s lanugo is lost before birth.
• Common seal pups swim straight after birth, whereas grey seal pups stay on land for a week or so before braving the water.
• The common seal's coat is covered in black spots which seem to join up and give him an overall dark coat. The grey seal's coat varies from pale grey (known as blond) to dappled or dark.
• It's difficult to put an age on adult seals but the condition of the coat can give a clue. Older males can be identified by their scars from fighting with other males during breeding seasons.
• There are more common seals along the West coast but they can be seen along the East coast as well.
• Common seals and grey seals haul out (lying out on rocks and islands) together and are not aggressive to each other.

People usually find stranded pups while they are out for a walk on the beach and contact the Irish Seal Sanctuary. The main message that the Irish Seal Sanctuary tries to get across to the public is not to attempt to put a seal back in the water. If the pup is out of the water, it is for a reason, i.e. they are just waiting for the cow to return or they are actually sick and unable to cope in the water. Our first instinct when we see a stranded pup is to try and put it back into the water but this is actually the last thing in the world that we should do.

Stranded pups have usually been separated from the cow because of storms (in winter), sometimes by disturbance from boats and sometimes by people. The cow has given birth on what seems like a quiet beach and then if there is a sunny day, people swarm to the beach and the pup is disturbed. The cow leaves the pup alone while she goes to feed and if she detects human disturbance on her return, there is a risk that she will abandon the pup.

Newborn pups separate from the cow when they are just a few weeks old and this is a difficult time for them. They have a blubber store from weaning – the seal cow’s milk is particularly high in protein – but when the pups go their own way, they need to learn to catch and eat fish for themselves. Sometimes, they have a difficult time with this and they might end up on shore, underweight or emaciated.

Seal pups are assessed on arrival at the Irish Seal Sanctuary and problems might include emaciation, dehydration (seals don’t drink as such, they get their fluids from fish), sometimes wounds from crashing against rocks, sometimes a propeller injury and a couple have arrived with fish hooks on their noses. Less obvious problems might turn up, for example lung worm or heart worm. They can arrive at the Sanctuary from the age of a couple of days to being 2 or 3 months old.

Following assessment, pups go through the feeding stages in the kennel area. They are kept in a large kennel space for observation while they are still vulnerable, with shelter, space and a bath of water where they make their first attempts at swimming.

Depending on their health, seals might stay in the sanctuary for between three and six months, with the common seals coming in during the summer months and the grey seals during the winter months. If you visit in early winter, you might see a grey seal pup that’s still in ‘lanugo’ or the white coat that they are born with and lose when they are two to three weeks old.

Firstly, the pups are tube-fed a fish soup made up of liquidised herring, glucose and vitamins – as a substitute for the cow’s milk. Herring is used because it is high in protein; the seal cow's milk is exceptionally rich in fat and protein so herring is a good substitute.

The pups are then introduced to whole fish with assistance from a volunteer, as it can take some practice to get the hang of swallowing a whole fish.

Once the pups have got the hang of swallowing, they are simply hand fed and then they are given fish in their bath. When the pups are confident feeding independently in their baths, they are moved to the nursery pool where they can be monitored and finally they are moved to the pre-release pool.

The average stay for a pup in the sanctuary can fall between 3 and 6 months, with some pups making a speedy recovery and others being more susceptible to illness or infection.

By the time the seals are in the nursery or pre-release pools, they are displaying a good range of natural behaviours – including play, hauling out (lying out on land or rocks) and a range of positions or seal poses like bottling (floating upright in the water with their noses pointing skywards), the banana pose (relaxed on land, lying on one side with head and hind flippers curled up in the shape of a banana), resting underwater (they can sleep underwater and float, still sleeping to the surface to breathe and then sink again), scratching, stretching and scanning (looking around). Seals rarely lie still – they are constantly on the lookout.

In the wild, seals are sociable and haul out together in colonies, alert for possible disturbance or danger. The goal of the Irish Seal Sanctuary is to rehabilitate seals and release them at a healthy weight and in a healthy condition so they can adapt to the wild. Approximately 60 – 80 common and grey seals are rehabilitated annually at the Irish Seal Sanctuary with an 80-90% success rate.

The seals are released around the Irish coast in the area where they were originally found - so if a seal was found in Cork, he will be released in Cork; if he was found in Donegal he'll be released in Donegal. The releases are a fun day out and a great opportunity to observe a wild animal return to his natural environment.

The Irish Seal Sanctuary is running a Seal the Deal fundraising campaign right now for a Marine Conservation Centre – a modern facility that’s planned as a project in sustainable marine eco-tourism and that will be a base for everything from seal rehab to seal-watching tours off the Irish East coast.