By Claire Walla

Seeking nutritional solace from their icy summer breeding grounds, now’s the time harbor seals make their way down the East Coast of North America. Some even land in Montauk, where fresh fish and smooth rocks provide the perfect tools for these ocean creatures to fatten up and pass the time before returning back north.

According to Lindsey Rohrbach, nature educator at the South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center, December, January and February are the best months to see these blubbery creatures in their natural habitat. And for this reason, Rohrbach will be leading a nature walk at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 19 along the Seal Haul Out Trail that will culminate on the shores of Montauk where, Rohrbach predicts, participants will be able to see a handful of harbor seals. Though grey, harp and hooded seals have also been known to inhabit Long Island in the winter months, Rohrbach said they are much less common than harbor seals.
“There are plenty of harbor seals,” she noted with a laugh. “More and more are coming down here.”

Though she has seen about 50 at one time, Rohrbach said the average number of sightings hovers around 20. While the seal population is currently in good standing, Rohrbach said it suffered a minor decline in the 1970s, which was thought to be attributed, at least in some part, to human influence.

“People have a tendency to want to touch the animals,” Rohrbach said.
But this often caused seals to waddle away, interrupting their sleepy down-time and effectively prevented the animals from storing up the energy they needed to migrate back up north in spring.
Ever since the Marine Animal Protection Act of 1972, which prohibited people from disturbing the creatures’ natural behavior, the seal population has grown, Rohrbach said. Though this has been fruitful for seal enthusiasts and all parties interested in viewing the animals’ winter habits, Rohrbach added that this detail might not be such great news. Based on theories of her own, she attributes the increase in the seal population locally to global climate change.

Long Island is just about as far south as the harbor seal travels. Any further south and the water is too warm for their well-insulated bodies to handle. But as Arctic glaciers continue to melt and the warm Gulf Stream continues to evade the East Coast, the waters off of Long Island are becoming increasingly cooler and more habitable for seal populations.
But, that’s another story.

Rohrbach adds that the weather on Sunday will most likely be windy and cold, which doesn’t provide for optimum seal-viewing conditions. The animals enjoy basking on the rocks that dot the shoreline, an activity that proves difficult for these ambulatory-challenged animals to achieve in high winds. However, Rohrbach says reports have been good for sightings this year, and she doesn’t expect to leave the shore unfulfilled.

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