S.O.S. for the inhabitants of the Sea

 Pieterburen, in Holland, is a very small village with about 500 hundreds inhabitants. Its hospital, however, is extremely active. The phone rings frequently to announce urgent admissions. Once the signal has been given, the relief procedure starts ticking: preparations to receive the new patient proceed fast and furiously. The attendants, dressed as though they were about to enter an operating theatre, clean and disinfect the room thoroughly. Before long, the patient arrives in a wicker basket and wrapped in a woollen blanket.

The patient is a "whinner", the name given to young seal cubs when they are less than six weeks old. It has a high temperature. It is given two injections and special ointment is rubbed into its eyes. All relevant details are taken down on the case sheet. Here, in the Zeehondencreche, or the Seal Hospital, founded in 1971 by Lenie't Hart, the sick cub will receive all the treatment and care it needs.

Four vets and many volunteers work here with infinite patience and dedication all year round. To succour and feed the cubs, which are generally underwight, the researchers have prepared a nourishing mixture of fish and water. The food is administered through a rubber tube every three hours for the first few days, and then gradually reduced to four times a day.

After a few weekks, the cubs are fed on small fish. Only when they are three months old are the young seals able to catch a sufficient quantity of fish ( aprox. 3 kilos a day ). Once they weigh between thirty and forty kilos, the seals can finally return to their natural habitat.

Return to the ocean is part of the programme at these help centres. Only in the case of severe handiccap is a seal held back and settled relunctantly in an oceanarium with adequate facilities. Meanwhile, the patients are housed in comfortable "rooms", fitted with bathrooms, for a period of about six months. Just outside the hospital complex many large tubs have been installed for the ones on the way to recovery.

Pieterburen Hospital is the most famous, but it isn't the only one of its kind. In recent years, similar centres have been opened in the United States, France, Italy, Scotland and in other parts of the globe. Volunteers struggle to save those animals that, more often than not, man puts at risk.

Guests at the various help centres include: pinniped mammals ( seals and sealions ), cetaceans ( dolphins, porpoises and other larger species ), as well as turtles, marines vertebrates which breathe air, but aren't mammals. All of them have one thing in common, that is, if they are either accidentally or intentionally stranded on a beach, they can survive for a short time out of the water. Survival is rendered all the more difficult for a number of reasons: plastic bags that are easy to swallow, fishing nets that can lead to suffocation, and above all, epidemics caused by collapse of the immune system because of pollution and petrol leakage. In 2001, the stomach of a seal examined by La Rochelle centre in France was found to be half full of hydrocarbons!

If it is true that these creature are in dire need of hospitals, then we really ought to start worrying!