Vancouver Aquarium asks public not to touch baby harbour seals, after rescued pup dies

Harbour seal pup season is in full swing at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre.

Five baby seals have been brought to the facility in the past week, all of them less than 10 days old, all somehow separated from their mothers in local waters.

Four of them are doing well. But manager Lindsaye Akhurst said one pup who staff named Douglas was taken straight to the intensive care unit after an interaction with a person in North Vancouver over the weekend.

“A well-intentioned citizen saw him in the water and brought him out of the water thinking he was in trouble. At that time, he was not in trouble. These are harbour seals, they spend a lot of time in the water,” said Akhurst, who added rescue centre staff knew about the pup and were already keeping an eye on him.

Akhurst said the stress of being taken out of the water by a human and being surrounded by a large crowd afterwards likely exacerbated an existing medical condition, and Douglas died late Tuesday afternoon. Now she’s pleading with people who see harbour seal pups on beaches or in the water not to touch them.

“We are seeing a bit of a trend going on this year with human interaction,” she said. “Unfortunately people do come on these beaches, see the pup by themselves, and feel they do need to intervene at that time, and that’s not the case. That’s where we do request you call us, we can get a team out there and clear the beach, observe and see if the mom does actually come back.”

Akhurst said it’s normal for mother harbour seals to leave their pups alone on a beach or in the water for extended periods of time while they are out foraging, and the baby seal often calls out for them, which can sound like a distress call.

“So if you are seeing that animal that has that vocalization, it’s a good thing, not a sad thing. They’re calling their mom back,” she said.

Rescue Centre staff have taken on the role of mother for the four surviving rescued harbour seal pups, tube feeding them several times a day. “Once they are starting to gain weight and they are probably around 3 to 4 weeks old, we will start introducing fish to their diet,” said Akhurst.

Ultimately, the goal is to release them all back into the wild sometime this summer.