Ocean Sentry
(from Russia Today) Eleven malnourished seal pups have been rescued from a beach and taken to a zoo in Saint Petersburg. However, city authorities have taken a dim view of the zoo”s actions and have hit it with a fine as the seals lacked the correct documents. The baby seals were saved from perishing in the waters of the Gulf of Finland by staff from the Leningrad Zoo in Saint Petersburg.
As Lora Bolivan from Leningrad Zoo Animal Rehabilitation Centre explains, due to the unusually warm winter and spring, seals were no longer able to look after their offspring. They left their pups on the beach and migrated north.
The baby seals were struggling to survive and would almost certainly have died if they hadn’t ended up in the zoo.
“The animals were so exhausted. We had to help them achieve the weight expected for their age, teach them to hunt and to become independent from humans,” Vyacheslav Alekseev, Leningrad Zoo Animal Rehabilitation Centre, said.
The rehab centre did its job and now the seals are able to feed themselves without human aid.
In a week they’ll leave the centre’s pools to start a new life in the water of the Gulf of Finland.
The life saving, however, didn’t come without cost. The zoo was fined $US 700 – because the animals had no veterinary certificate.
“We didn’t fine the zoo because of their love for animals,” says Evgeny Karpov, the spokesman of St. Petersburg’s Veterinary Administration.
“The animals they took to treat could be carrying diseases. They should have been examined. Otherwise, zoo workers risk the lives of other animals at the zoo,” he said.
He believes the solution for both sides could be the creation of a special service devoted to helping wild animals recover.
The zoo workers, however, say they just had no choice.
“We faced a choice – to take them and help them recover, thus violating the law, or leave them to die. I think the latter is an even worse crime since these animals are an endangered species,” Irina Skiba, Head of Leningrad zoo, said.
