EXPLORIS Aquarium is dealing with a surge in orphaned seal pups.
Staff at the beleaguered Portaferry aquarium, which is facing closure due to financial pressures, have confirmed they are hand-rearing seven pups saved from the local coastline.
Although they are baffled by the high number of common seal pups requiring rehabilitation this season, they believe busy beaches, with speed boats and jetskis, may have led to mothers being accidentally separated from their young.
Exploris aquarist Mrs. Judith Caldwell said stormy weather may have explained other years when so many stranded pups needed saved, but she said it seems the good weather of recent weeks may this time be to blame.
Exploris Aquarium staff have saved over 400 seal pups since the facility opened in 1989 with over 80 per cent surviving to be returned to the wild.
Mrs. Caldwell said the gruelling regime of looking after the pups, most of whom are ill and underweight, was similar to looking after a new-born.
The routine includes sterilising feed bottles, preparing the feed mixture of fish soup, vitamins and salmon oil, and cleaning up the mess made by the pups.
However, she said it is very rewarding when the time comes, after four to six months, to return the seals to the wild.
“We are working at quite a fast pace this year as this time last year we had just three or four seal pups,” she said.
“If we have busy rescue season we sometimes blame it on the weather, but this time it could be because inexperienced mothers have been separated from their young because of our busy beaches.
“We are not involved in seal counts but it is possible that numbers are up.
“We do expect to be busy with common seal pups into June and July as it is peak pupping season and we are the only seal sanctuary in Northern Ireland.”
Despite the aquarium looking increasingly under threat as Ards Council struggles to secure a funding package needed for its future stability, Mrs. Caldwell says staff are very much working business as usual.
“These pups will be fed for three to four weeks because we start to really build them up for release back into the wild at at anything from three to six months,” she said.
“When they are released into Strangford Lough they will be microchipped and have bright pink paint on their backs so if anybody sees them they can let us know where they are.
“Although we do not get attached to the pups because they are wild animals rather than pets, we are glad to see them being released again and to hear they have survived in the wild.
“We are just getting on with our jobs.”
Members of the public can find out more about the Seal Rehabilitation work carried out at Exploris and can view the seal ponds by visiting the website www.exploris.org.uk.