North Sea seal

The North Sea is home to marine mammals. Common seals, and Harbour porpoises can be found along the coasts, at marine installations, and on islands. The very northern North Sea islands such as the Shetland Islands are occasionally home to a larger variety of pinnipeds including bearded, harp, hooded and ringed seals, and even walrus. North Sea cetaceans include various porpoise, dolphin and whale species.

A virus, which cost the lives of 18,000 seals on Germany's North Sea coast in 1988 has turned up on German shores again this week. It poses a fatal threat to the seals and ecology of Europe’s unique North Sea mud flats.

The North Sea seal population is in serious danger.  The seal is a sociable animal. But the creature's friendly habits are now costing it its life. Experts say that viruses have little trouble spreading fast among seal populations.

Indeed, in 1988, the Phocine Distemper Virus (PDV) cost the lives of 18,000 seals on Germany’s North Sea cost, effectively wiping out some 60 per cent of the area’s seal population. There are now fresh signs that the environmental nightmare is seeing an unwelcome revival. The first dead seals with the lethal virus were discovered two months ago in Kattegat, just off the Danish island Anholt. Since then 2000 animals have fallen victim to the deadly disease off the Scandinavian coast, and the first five infected seals were washed up on German shores this week.

The present crisis is almost a repitition of the virus-outbreak scenario, 14 years ago. The 1988 epidemic, the first to have been reported since researchers counted some 37,000 seals living in the North Sea’s mud flats back in 1900, was sparked by arctic seals. They are believed to have been suffering from Russian and Scandinavian overfishing and looking for nutrition way beyond the boundaries of their natural habitat.

The PDV virus befalls lungs and respiratory organs and bacterial infections bacteria follow. As parasites spread easily to other body organs, the seal dies a slow, and painful death. While arctic seals are able to live with the PDV virus, the North Sea seal’s population are defenceless against this relatively new epidemic, as they lack the necesary antibodies. In addition, weakened by a steady increase in marine pollution, these animals now stand little chance of survival.

Thank you Joachim for this card, because such seals may be extinct soon.