SEAL ISLAND, Maine — A collection of live HD cameras on Seal Island will allow marine biologists and the public to watch gray seals return to the rocky refuge 21 miles off the coast of Rockland and give birth.
An estimated 500 or more young pups are expected to be born this season, according to explore.org, the philanthropic media organization that is producing the broadcast over the Internet.
The organization is a division of the Annenberg Foundation. The cameras began broadcasting Dec. 19 and will continue through the end of February, when most of the pups will have gone out to sea.
The cameras on Seal Island are powered by solar panels and originally were set up to view the puffin nesting cycle, the release said.
The Seal Pupping Cams are part of the Pearls of the Planet endeavor initiated by explore.org, created to help people connect with nature through innovative technologies and real-time, commercial-free Web video programming, according to a news release issued Tuesday by explore.org.
“Few moments in nature speak to the hearts of people more than watching an animal in the first days of life,” Charlie Annenberg, founder of explore.org, said. “With the seal pupping cams, we are helping people escape the urban squalor and, if only for a moment, reconnect with nature in its purest state.”
Used by the U.S. Navy as a bombing target from the 1940s to the 1960s, the 65-acre national wildlife refuge is a nesting place used to revive the puffin population. Since 2000, the island has become the second largest gray seal pupping site in the U.S. The largest is Muskeget, Massachusett, a privately owned, uninhabited island several miles northwest of Nantucket, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Seals mate at sea or on land but come ashore to give birth, according to marinelife.about.com. Their gestation period is about 11 months.
Females give birth to one pup per year between late December and early February, according explore.org. Pups weigh between 24 and 44 pounds, and mothers nurse them for about 2½ to three weeks.
A pup may gain more than 4 pounds per day until being abruptly weaned. At first pups feeds off their blubber, but between three and six weeks they head out to sea to feed on fish, crustaceans, squid, octopus and sea birds, according to marinelife.about.com.
Those watching the live feed from the Seal Pupping Cams may observe adult seals mating as well as bald eagles. The eagles supplement their diet of fish and birds with the seal’s afterbirth, according to explore.org.