Signed, sealed, delivered
words: beverley d’silva Groningen in the Netherlands is home to one of the world’s most famous seal sanctuaries. We spoke to its founder, Lenie ’t Hart, about her lifelong passion for these heavenly sea creatures, the threats they face and how some really are as smart as humans THERE IS FAR more to a destination [...]
words: beverley d’silva
Groningen in the Netherlands is home to one of the world’s most famous seal sanctuaries. We spoke to its founder, Lenie ’t Hart, about her lifelong passion for these heavenly sea creatures, the threats they face and how some really are as smart as humans
THERE IS FAR more to a destination like Groningen than its 15th-century Martinitoren, the tallest church tower in the city and the fourth tallest church tower in the Netherlands. Or its revered ship-like museum designed by Philippe Starck, Alessandro Mendini and Coop Himmelblau. Or its great restaurants and underground music scene. For the city is also the stopping point for visiting a venue that’s put the area firmly on the wildlife map – its world-famous centre for seals, Zeehondencrèche Lenie ’t Hart. An unmissable attraction, it draws over 150,000 visitors a year who, for a €2 fee, can watch seals feeding and being cared for, or simply splashing around boisterously to their hearts’ content.
But this is most definitely not a zoo and the seals are far from the performing variety: Zeehondencrèche Lenie ’t Hart is a rescue centre and a sanctuary for orphaned, lost, sick or injured seals. And within three months of being admitted to the centre in Pieterburen (about 22 miles from Groningen), and having regained full health, every seal will be released back into the wild.
Even those whiskered creatures that have become internationally famous – albeit briefly – such as Black Lola, a grey seal who seemed to “talk” to humans, and Hannes, a seal pup who made a daring escape from a zoo. But more of these later.
The remarkable woman who is the heart, soul and life-force of the centre is the eponymous Lenie ’t Hart. Bouncing with energy and laughter, she looks younger than her 65 years, which she turned on 16 September; a date that’s also the anniversary of the seal sanctuary she founded 35 years ago. Lenie has devoted her adult life to saving seals and to establishing principles for their care that have since been adopted by seal sanctuaries worldwide, not to mention the many campaigns she is running to generally improve the environment in which seals live. Now the centre attracts families, groups of schoolchildren and nature-lovers, who come for a guided tour. They can see the animals being cared for at close quarters as well as swimming in outdoor pools. For children, there is informative film footage about seals’ habitat and participatory games.
It all started in 1971, when the daughter of one of Lenie’s neighbours found a young orphan seal stranded on the beach. Her father asked Lenie to take care of it.
“I suppose he asked me because I had a reputation for helping birds and suchlike. He probably thought: that woman’s crazy about animals, let’s ask her to
look after the seal,” she laughs. “It was difficult but I am a positive person. I told myself, ‘I must find a way to look after this seal’.”
As good as her word, Lenie cared for the creature in the back garden of her home, which she shared with her husband, the film producer Karst van der Meulen, and their son, Pieter, who was four at the time. The seal thrived, and a few months later she was able to release it back into the wild – to much media attention.
“The TV stations and newspapers were behind us from the start. I said, ‘the seal is our number one priority’. We are not a zoo, we’re a rehabilitation centre. Our aim is to help the animals.”
The first sanctuary Lenie opened in her home was to take in seals that had been abandoned by their mothers or were sick. The centre was soon being given financial help by the Dutch government and the World Wildlife Fund. Eight years later, in 1979, when Lenie and her family moved to Pieterburen, they opened the centre at the location where it’s still found today. In the early years, she took in 15 seals a year. Last year, the centre rescued 200.
The number of seals in peril is growing, and the gravest threat to them is from pollution, oil spills and over-fishing. “Of these, the most dangerous is over-fishing. This is not about local fishermen catching fish for human consumption. It’s about commercial fishing for small fish day and night, to be used for fish meal for animal consumption and to supply fish farms,” Lenie explains. “Small fish are a staple food for seals. But with this food source diminishing, some have to venture into more dangerous waters to find food. The grey seal, for instance, has begun to hunt further afield, into the North Sea.”
TRAGICALLY, OTHER SEALS aren’t strong enough to venture further and are starving. In recent years, the centre has been receiving seals weighing around 10 kilos at three months old, when they should weigh three times that. “They are simply not getting enough food because all the small fish are taken by big industry.” Birds, porpoises and dolphins, which also eat small fish, are at dire risk too. “A lot of porpoises are being found dead in Scotland: there is no sand eel, which they eat, because it has been over-fished.”
One of the toughest issues the centre faces is the killing of seals.
Their slaughter, to stop them eating fish that could be for human consumption, still goes on in places such as the Orkneys. “We accept that the people have a problem. We try to talk to them and find a solution,” she says. Seals continue to be hunted in certain countries such as Canada, where fishermen have been banned from fishing (owing to over-fishing) and are paid by the Canadian government to kill seals instead. Lenie is sympathetic to the fishermen’s situation, acknowledging that they need to do this for their living. However, she is raising funds from her supporters (Sir Paul McCartney is one) to pay them so they don’t have to kill seals.
Even back in the early 1980s, the centre was aware of the toll that pollution took on the seal community. The European seal population was suffering a mass mortality, and two-thirds died. Later, in 1988, the seals in Scotland and Norfolk began to diminish drastically. “You couldn’t bear to see it,” Lenie says sadly. “But I tried to stay positive, thinking what to do for the best.”
Her strategy was to separate her workers into two teams: one to collect dead seals, a second to care for survivors. Then, in 1984, she launched a research project with the renowned virologist Professor Osterhaus.
“With the professor’s expertise, we discovered the cause [of the deaths] was a seal distemper virus. We took two groups of seals and fed one fish from the Baltic, the other fish from the north Atlantic. The seals that ate fish from the Baltic had a lowered immunity. And what was affecting their immune systems, making them susceptible to the virus, was pollution.”
The pollution in the seas comes from factories, sewage and other factors. “Some of the toxins have been in the environment for 100 years, so we can’t change the situation quickly. We need a clean sea, with fish enough for the seals. And the first thing to do is to clean up the seas.”
Accordingly, she has spearheaded a new organisation, Sea Alarm. The centre is working with Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL), a rescue operation with oil-spill equipment based in Southampton. “If there’s an oil spillage anywhere in the world, when the rescue equipment goes out to it from Southampton, the equipment to help wildlife will go out at the same time, and animal-rescue workers
are also alerted. It’s always been my vision to work hand-in-hand with industry, so we can tackle the problems for wildlife together.”
Another of the centre’s campaigns is to collect nets from the Dutch fishermen. Stray nets can do much damage to seals, wounding their necks as they get tangled in them during play. So the team picks up tons of nets every week. The nets are dumped in the centre’s garden. “We stack the nets as a mountain – it’s like art.”
Lenie’s family are all involved with the seals: her husband plans to produce a short movie about the nets campaign. And her son, Pieter, an airline pilot, is doing a PhD on the hunting of seals in the Netherlands from the 16th century to 1962, when it was outlawed.
The campaigns run alongside the essential day-to-day rescue work. When a seal is brought in, it is put into quarantine, has blood tests and is given treatment and medicine. As well as 29 paid employees and 100 volunteers, the centre has two full-time vets who do all the treatments and the autopsies on dead seals that are brought in, which number about 100 each year.
THANKFULLY, THE CENTRE admits double the number of seals that are nursed back to health, nurtured on a diet of herring. Each seal eats about three kilos per day. “They are very clever,” says Lenie, proudly. “They accept our help but when they are healthy again, they say goodbye, and they never glance back at us. They are still wild animals when we release them, which is very important for their survival.”
In 2004, the centre enjoyed a visit from Rolf Harris, who filmed an episode of Animal Hospital there. “Rolf followed us as we released a seal back into the sea. Afterwards we all sung Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport – in Dutch!”
Last year, the centre drew a blaze of publicity over Hannes, a four-week-old pup from a German zoo who escaped, and went “on the run”.
“The zoo had separated Hannes from his mother, and he managed to escape and reached a lake on the borders of Germany and Holland. The papers and TV were following his progress. The joke was: how could he reach the Netherlands without a passport?”
Over 30 people tried to catch Hannes, and all failed. Finally, Lenie offered the centre’s services to catch the pup. “But we warned the zoo that if we do, we will release him.” The zoo agreed and, given the go-ahead, Lenie’s crew had caught Hannes within an hour. “He swam right into the arms of one of our workers. We put him in quarantine, did the tests, and there was nothing wrong with him.” But the German zoo reneged on its promise and started legal proceedings to get Hannes back. “I think they were paying back the Dutch for losing to us at football!” she giggles. “It had a happy ending though, because a group secretly released Hannes into the wild.”
This year the centre received Black Lola, a grey seal with a rare skin condition that made her skin appear black. “Black Lola was the most famous seal in the Netherlands: she was on a web-cam and when we released her there were six TV crews filming. She was extremely clever. When she saw a TV camera, she started to act and waved at them with her flipper.”
So does Lenie converse with the seals, like a female Dr Doolittle? “No, no, no!” she honks, giving a good impersonation of her whiskery friends.
She spends most of her days by or on the sea. “Being in the wild, that is my love.” And when she goes home, there are more animals, including a cow and a calf, four sheep, chickens, a rabbit and two cats. But she makes time for her human friends. “Some people who work with animals say, ‘We don’t like humans any more’.
I don’t feel like that. You have to love people too. The centre has 50,000 members, after all. We need humans.”
This year Lenie received a medal of honour from the Dutch government, and what pleased her more than the recognition she received was the power it gives the centre to move its work forward, such as its plans for a new building.
“People often ask me why I work with animals. It’s really quite simple. It’s because I cannot see them treated in a bad way. I am the union rep for the seals. I am their insurance!”
SUPPORT LENIE’S SEAL REHABILITATION AND RESEARCH CENTRE
The centre (open daily 9am-6pm) is dependant on donations. For information on tours, volunteering and donating, please visit the website. Hoofdstraat 94A, 9968 AG Pieterburen, The Netherlands; +31 595 526526; www.zeehondencreche.nl
