Last Tuesday, it was a festive day in Terschelling: two seals were being brought back to their natural habitat. What made it extra special was that one of the seals in question had only recently – July 21st - been brought to the SRRC, entangled in a net with very deep wounds, and had recovered very quickly. The other was a common seal who, after 5 months fighting lungworm was now fully recovered and ready to go home. To complete this milestone: these were seals number 199 and 200 to be released this year by the SRRC.
In Terschelling they were amazed too. Only three weeks ago, Don Diego was spotted by Jan Koning from Vlieland and taken from the Engelse Hoek sandbank by Hessel Wiegman from Terschelling. The poor animal’s head was stuck in a fishnet and in the struggle to get free deep wounds had been caused. It is almost unimaginable that the wounds had healed so much in three weeks that Don Diego was able to return back to sea.
Together with Jochem, a common seal who has spent the last five months overcoming a serious lungworm problem, Don Diego was released with the Noordvaarder on Tuesday.
When the list was made, we saw that we were dealing with seal number 199 and 200. This may be the reason why the two animals made a race of who reached the water the first. Don Diego won. At this moment, another 72 seals at the SRRC are awaiting their Beautiful Day.
08-12-2009 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart
