Hooded Seal Doing Great

By Catherine M. Welch

Wilmington, NC – Researchers at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher say the young hooded seal found stranded on Wrightsville Beach last Friday is doing well.

Police found the juvenile male seal by the Oceanic Pier early Friday morning. Bob Schoelkopf is founding director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in New Jersey.

He says normally two to three hooded seal strandings are recorded a year, but this year is already up to eight or nine. He says this could be due to an unusually large adult population.

I think what's happening is the population of the adults up north far out weighs the numbers of babies and the food is scarce, so the babies move out of that area where the adults are so they can get a better chance of feeding.

Schoelkopf says seal season, when they are most likely to be stranded,runs between October and May.

The seal found on Wrightsville Beach is now at the Virginia Beach Aquarium where he is reportedly alert and feisty.