After an orca and a beluga, a seal of the sea calf species was spotted this week in the Seine.
According to the latest news, he was still near Poses (Eure), about thirty kilometers upstream from the lock where the last cetacean had been blocked at the beginning of August (extracted during a rescue operation, he had to be euthanized during his transfer to Calvados).
Should we be worried about this new marine mammal?
Alain Beaufils, head of the wildlife protection center of the CHENE association (Centre for accommodation and study of nature and the environment) in Allouville-Bellefosse (Seine-Maritime), helps us to see more light.
What is the latest information you have on the Seine seal?
ALAIN BEAUFILS.
According to the photos sent to our association, he does not seem to be in ideal shape, but he is not in decline either, he is still autonomous.
As long as it's near water and still under the influence of the tides, it's fine.
When the Seine goes down, if the seal does not follow the water, there will be a problem.
How to explain its presence?
Seals in the Seine are normal, especially seals, which sometimes stay there for one or two months.
It is a species that returned to France in the 1980s. The first individuals were spotted in the Bay of Somme, then the populations grew and colonized the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel and the Bay of Veys
(Isigny-sur- Sea in Calvados)
.
Today, there are a few individuals in the Seine estuary, around ten to twenty.
The seal is a sedentary species, but the first year, the young settle down from right to left, it's a story of emancipation.
Thanks to Argos beacons placed on them, it was observed that individuals born in Mont-Saint-Michel could end up in England.
Can the animal survive in a river?
Seals like this are found in salty, brackish [
estuaries, where there is a mixture of fresh and salt water
] and fresh water, where they have no problem living.
Some even live in the Thames!
Unfortunately, people have preconceptions, but just because seals live in the sea doesn't mean they need salt water.
On the contrary, as it is a mammal, it is rather the excess salt in the body which is harmful, but it is adapted and it has salt glands to evacuate the excess.
Should we intervene to bring this seal back to shore?
People reported his presence to us recently and tried to rescue him, but in the end they disturbed him and he went back to the Seine.
For now, let it be.
We are specialists, if we have to intervene, we will.
Either way, good or bad, you can't catch a seal in the water.
If it is stranded and it goes badly, we will try to recover it to treat it.
It's not like the killer whale and the beluga, cetaceans that don't live in this region and that the currents have taken to the Seine.
When they arrived, they were already dying.