Duck Island, the northernmost of the Isles of Shoals, and, adjacent to Appledore, is excellent seal habitat, often with a population of 100 or more. Duck Island is about 11 acres with an elevation of only 10 feet. Several of the surrounding ledges are large enough to have names: Southwest, Mingo, Shag, and Eastern. Duck is about six miles from Rye Harbor and about ten miles from the usual excursion docks in Portsmouth Harbor. The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) requires special permits involving activities such as research and display. And as Hal Weeks, assistant director for SML, noted: The objective here is to get the rehabbed seals back into the wild with a minimum of additional human contact. Times have certainly changed since I was a kid in the 1950s, watching from New Castle Beach as puffs of smoke rose from Duck Island while planes out of nearby Pease Air Force Base in Newington practiced bombing! In early August Mystic Aquarium brought two seals, one a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) and one a gray seal (Halichoerus grypus), for release at Duck. Because Duck Island is in Maine, representatives from Maines Department of Marine Resources (DMR) were also present for the release. The weather worked out very well for the trip. It was extremely hot at the dock in Portsmouth, near 90 with little wind, but outside the harbor it quickly cooled off and we remained in sunny but hazy conditions until the return, when we passed through a brief shower in advance of an approaching cold front.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 19:59:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015