Prince Edward Islanders watching seal colony for sixty years

Yesterday David, Jolly and I got to see a huge colony of grey and harbor seals living on an island wildlife sanctuary on Prince Edward Island Canada. The Captain of Marine Adventures told us he’d been doing the tours for nine years and that the tour had been running since the early 1980s. He also mentioned that he recently had a 64-year-old woman passenger who said that her father used to take her out to see the seals when she was a little girl. It’s fun to think of how long people have enjoyed just going out to see the seal colony.

The captain told us that a few years ago the seals were counted and there were about 300, but he now thinks there are less, somewhere between 200 and 300. The seal pups were wiped out in recent winters because there was no ice to protect them when a storm hit.

I couldn’t count how many we saw sunning themselves on a sandbar with some cormorants and gulls. Or swimming out in the water to watch us. Some kept bobbing up behind the boat like they were following us. I asked the captain whether some people threw them fish–a tactic that more than one passenger on our cruise discussed. He said, no, it was illegal to feed them, but that maybe that’s what they were looking for from the boats. Fishermen would shoot them if they saw them behind their boats, he said.

Generally this wasn’t

Keep reading Prince Edward Islanders watching seal colony for sixty years

Share/Save

Baby Beluga Shows Up in Bay of Fundy

Baby Beluga Shows Up in Bay of Fundy

Teri at Bay of Fundy Blog reports that a young Beluga Whale has shown up in the bay between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick known for its record tides. What’s unusual is a) a Beluga showing in the bay at all and b) any whale showing up this deep in the bay.

CTV has a great story on the whale, known as Q, and describe the two-year-old as friendly and curious. This isn’t a story about an endangered animal increasing its range–which would be terrific. It’s more the story of an individual somehow getting separated from its family–which is sad and scary. Some belugas live up in the St. Lawrence, so maybe that’s where Q’s pod is.

Scientists are also worried about people hanging around Q too much. Local fishermen are taking understandably excited locals out to see Q. The Whale Stewardship Project on Nova Scotia says that “orphaned, lost or somehow separated from their family pods, juvenile whales often begin to seek out human companionship and interact with boats and other objects.” The project is worried that whales will get used to friendly boats then get hurt by not so friendly people or propellers.

Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into yet another story where the people who love an animal end up causing it harm.

Where to See Animals in CanadaBest Whale-Watching Spots Around the World

To see more animals go to

Keep reading Baby Beluga Shows Up in Bay of Fundy