In all of 2024, Mystic Aquarium's Animal Rescue Program (ARP) helped 22 entangled seals. In the first five months of this year, they've already passed that number with 25, and all but two were from around Block Island.
The marine mammals can become tied up and injured by a number of man-made objects.
“It's fishing gear that we're seeing a lot of, netting, rope, twine. We've also seen, like packaging straps,” Animal Rescue Program manager Sarah Callan said.
Callan said the fast-growing seal population on Block Island is one reason for the spike in entanglements.
“In 2022 we had, on average, about 100 or so seals. And this year, we've had over 1,300 seals,” Callan said.
A live web camera often shows hundreds of them lounging on a beach on the island.
Callan said they are trying to figure out if the overall seal population in Southern New England is increasing or if the mammals are just redistributing from other areas, like Cape Cod.
So last year, Callan’s program partnered with Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, Atlantic Shark Institute, Block Island Maritime Institute and Atlantic Marine Conservation Society to study the issue.
Tracking the seals
In the first year of the project, they were able to put satellite tags on all the rehabbed seals they released back into the ocean.
Callan said satellite tags can give really important data such as how far seals are diving and how long they are staying at that depth.
“We really wanted to see over time how their movements change and how that is impacted by ... prey distribution due to warming water temperatures,” Callan said.
But the research project used up its last two satellite tags when six seals were released in May.
Due to uncertainties around federal funding cuts, money that was coming from Rhode Island’s environmental department to buy more satellite tags had been reallocated.
The department said it remains committed to seal population research, but it had to prioritize more affordable monitoring methods, like acoustic tags and in-person surveys.
Acoustic tags cost $400 while satellite tags are $5,000. Plus, acoustic tag batteries can last several years while the life of a satellite tag is only a few months.
Callan said acoustic tags work when a seal is close enough to a receiver that’s in the water and it sends out a ping.
“That's really the question we're asking about this population on Block Island. Are these resident seals? Are they leaving? Are they coming back? Where are they going? Acoustic tags allow us to track that information,” Callan said.
While the research project used up its last two acoustic tags in May, The Atlantic Shark Institute recently purchased 20 more for use on future seal releases.
Financial impacts of entanglements
It costs Callan’s animal rescue program around $10,000 to rehab each injured marine animal and that funding comes from a variety of sources including donations, Mystic Aquarium visitors, small foundational grants and the federal government.
“We do get federal funding through a Prescott Grant, which is through NOAA, and there's a lot of questions about the status of that for next year,” Callan said.
This calendar year, the Prescott Grant is funding $150,000 of its roughly $600,000 operating budget.
She said the public can help seals today by keeping their fishing gear secure and reducing single-use plastics.
“The general public will throw so many single-use plastics out in a trash can every day, and it gets taken away, and we don't see where it goes, but a lot of it ends up in the ocean,” Callan said.
If the man-made object doesn’t end up wrapped around a seal, sometimes it can end up inside the seal.
“It can come from a laundry detergent bottle that's in the water or a water bottle that broke,” Callan said. “Plastic will never leave the environment once it's created and those micro plastics are really dangerous for animals to ingest.”
The famous baby seal, Chappy, who was found on a New Haven street earlier this year, was found to have had plastic in his stomach. Though Chappy’s death was caused by twisted intestines.
Like Chappy, Callan said most of the seals they rehab after being injured by man-made debris are less than three months old
