I have a soft spot for animals, which means I tend to tear up when I see an animal in need. How much more reason would I need to visit the places that help these poor souls? That’s why the seal sanctuary has been on my wishlist for a long time and in June this year I finally managed to visit. 

Lenie ‘t Hart

I can’t start this blog post without mentioning Lenie ‘t Hart, without her the Seal Sanctuary may not have existed. She started the nursery in 1971 with one lost seal in a bath in her backyard. This one-woman operation grew into the seal centre we all love in the Netherlands.

What started as a simple nursery evolved into a professional scientific research-based seal hospital, with accompanying facilities such as quarantines, a laboratory, a chemist and all the research equipment imaginable. All seals are released into the wild after their rehabilitation period. However, this move away from traditional care and subsequent change in mind-set of the employees has forced Lenie ‘t Hart to leave her company.

I’m not looking to pass judgement, as I don’t know enough about the subject. What’s important to me is that these babies are taken care of, and released back into the wild once they are ready. That’s what’s still happening today, and who knows maybe all the scientific research also benefits the seals.

Baby Seals

The Netherlands is home to the common seal and the grey seal. Common seals are born in summer and grey seals are born with their white fur coats in winter. Depending on when you visit the Seal Sanctuary, you’ll find one of the two kinds. I visited in summer so I mainly saw the common seals.

Baby seals are also known as “howlers” because of the high-pitched screaming noise they make. I wish I knew this before I visited the centre because one of the little ones started screaming and it resonated through every fibre of my body!

When the lost and orphaned babies are taken into the centre, they go through three phases:

1. Intensive Care: the seals are placed in pairs if possible and they get their full health check up.

2. Care: if the seal is found to be healthy enough to go to the second phase, it moves on to the care phase. Here the seals are staying in groups and are hand-fed in big enclosures. I was lucky enough to be in time for the feeding, check the website for more information because it’s worth experiencing it.

3. Recovery: if the seal is healthy enough to move on, it’s placed in the recovery phase. Here he has to catch his own food, so that he can learn how to behave in the wild again. Following this phase, the seal is returned back to its natural habitat.

Fish Nets

The centre doesn’t only take in orphaned baby seals, it also takes in hurt grown ups. Most of the times when the seals are hurt it’s because of the massive amount of fish nets left in the sea. The centre has found a clever way to deal with this, because they take the nets from the sea and make clothing. I bought a sweater with a fish net hoodie.

Conclusion

I have no problem admitting that when I arrived at the centre I became quite emotional. As I said in the introduction, hurt animals have this effect on me. Especially the little ones in the quarantine area saddened me, imagine if no one would’ve found them! I’m so happy that there are places like this to nurture the animals back to health.

An added bonus to visiting this centre is to see the little seals awkwardly flapping around on land to run after their keepers, but then seeing them swim gracefully in the water.

If you’re in the north of the Netherlands, a visit to Pieterburen is a must!