On February 23 in Hel sealarium, the first grey seal this year was born. Neptun weighed 13 kg and measured 105 centimetres. His parents are Unda Marina and Bubas. This year, the sealarium awaits the birth of two more seal pups.
Pup seal was born last Monday at about 5 AM. Neptun’s mom is Unda Marina - the most experienced mother in the Hel herd, who has already given birth to a total of 17 pups. Baby\'s father is the dominant male in the herd – 28 years old Bubas. "The pup and the mother are doing well" - reported the Sealarium of the Marine Station of the University of Gdańsk on its website.
If all goes well, two more seals will soon be born in the Hel sealarium. Seals Ania and Agata are waiting to give birth
Seals\' birth and growing up of young seals can be followed on-line at: http://www.sledzfoki.pl/. The sealarium has a camera transmitting live images to the Internet.
Pregnancy in female seal takes a little over 11 months. The young are born in late February and early March. There is only one young in each litter. Seal pups weigh 9 to 15 kg and are covered with a thick, white fur called lanugo, which shed after a few weeks. When they grow up, they reach a weight of 100-200 kg for females and 200-300 kg for males.
Pups will stay for two to three months in the Hel sealarium. For the first three weeks mothers will take care of them. After this time, grey seal females leave the young and the station’s carers take over. Under their supervision, the seals will undergo special training preparing for life in the wild.
In May or June the animals born in the Hel sealarium will be released into the wild - the Baltic Sea. They will be the next young seals, going to the sea as part of the project of grey seal reintroduction on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, carried out by the station since 2002. The project objectives include the restoration of local colonies of this species, once common in our shores.
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