Seals released in Hampton Bays after being nursed back to health
HAMPTON BAYS, New York (WABC) -- They say the Hamptons always draws a crowd at the start of summer, but in Hampton Bays at Tiana Beach, the crowd came to see some local celebs that are a bit less trendy and more hairy than the regulars.
"Last night we released two grey seal pups," Maxine Montello of the New York Marine Rescue Center said.
One of them is a baby girl named Blueberry, rescued by the center in late March in Amagansett. She had become entangled in a glob of fishing line that left her with an infected laceration on her neck.
"Pollution in our oceans, and so being able to take that animal and give it a second chance is just tremendous," Montello said.
The other pup, named Lychee, is a boy who was found stranded in Montauk, the more typical way.
Many seals struggle to eat and drink on their own after leaving their mothers. The goal is often to treat them and help them double their weight without making them too dependent.
"We're just kind of throwing the fish into the water. So they're capturing them, you know, from either the bottom of the pool or in the water column," biologist Jill Pryor said.
But the best part of the job is setting them free. Blueberry was not so sure at first. She thought about going back in her crate, but then, after stopping to take in all her admirers, she went for it. Hard not to get too attached.
"So a couple of weeks ago, we had a satellite tag on a seal, and that animal made it all the way up to Nova Scotia in just a couple of days," Pryor said.
They answered 30 rescue calls for seals at the center this season. With the help of community volunteers and a hotline, they're down to their last five now. Two more bittersweet releases are scheduled for next week.
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