{"id":17568,"date":"2019-07-11T15:15:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T14:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=17568"},"modified":"2019-07-11T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T14:15:24","slug":"final-farewell-to-amphitrite-doris-and-the-2018-19-seal-season-at-exploris-aquarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2019\/07\/final-farewell-to-amphitrite-doris-and-the-2018-19-seal-season-at-exploris-aquarium\/","title":{"rendered":"Final farewell to Amphitrite, Doris and the 2018\/19 Seal Season at Exploris Aquarium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Sunday 14<\/strong>th<\/strong><\/sup> July the public and the Exploris Aquarium seal rescue team will gather at Knockinelder beach, Co.Down to say farewell to grey seals Amphitrite and Doris. They have been at Exploris Aquarium\u2019s seal sanctuary for 10 months and are now well enough to be released back to their natural home.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both seals where rescued from\nBallywalter last October, about 2 weeks apart. They both arrived at the seal\nsanctuary after being discovered by the public – abandoned, injured and in need\nof help by our specialist team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After an initial assessment each\nseal began their journey to rehabilitation receiving extensive medical care, to\nensure infections were kept at bay and housed in hospital pen whilst learning\nhow to eat fish. Once they reached about 15kg and could self-feed they were\nmoved to the outdoor pools where they learnt how to socialise with other seals.\nAt this stage, all human contact was kept to a minimum to ensure a successful\nre-introduction to the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both seals are now ready to be discharged\nfrom the seal unit as they have successfully reached their target weight of\nover 30kg and are in good health, ready to take on adult life in the wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter William, Curator at Exploris\nAquarium said \u201cBoth of these seals had a difficult start to life but after a\nlong and difficult journey, we are pleased to be\nfinally saying farewell and good luck to Amphitrite and Doris.  All being\nwell the release of these two will conclude our rehabilitation season for 2018\/19.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued \u201cEvery year\nExploris Aquarium rescues and releases between 20 to 40 seals. We rely on\nmembers of the public to call through to our seal rescue line when a pup is\nfound on a beach.  Our team of trained staff will take as much detail as\npossible regarding location and seal condition and if necessary take action to\nlift the seal off the beach and bring to the centre.  At the centre our\nstaff can treat the pups for injury or illness and provide 24 hour care. Only\nwhen the seals are fit and healthy again do we release them back to\nthe wild. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the release all seals are\ntagged on their rear flipper to help identify them. Over time this will be used\nto see how rehabbed seals influence the wild population through breeding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date Exploris Aquarium has\nrescued and released over 600 common and grey seals back into the wild. This\nwouldn\u2019t be possible without the funding support from DAERA, the vigilant\npublic and our adopt a seal programme. This adoption programme allows the\nadopter to follow their seals journey through rehab for a small fee. The\nadoption helps fund the fresh fish they eat, medication to make them better and\nequipment to transport and keep them safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amphitrite and Doris will be\nreleased back to the wild on Sunday 14th<\/sup> July at 10.30am on\nKnockinelder beach and the public are invited to come along and see them being\nreleased back to their natural home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this release\nconcludes the 2018\/19 seal season the 2019\/20 begins and on the 22nd<\/sup>\nof June the seal sanctuary at Exploris Aquarium accepted their 1st<\/sup>\nCommon Seal pup of the year, Ariel. Each season the seal rescue team\ndecide on a naming theme for the rescued seal pups. For the 2019\/20 season the\nnaming theme is Disney. You can follow the progress of our new seal season on\nFacebook, Twitter and Instagram @explorisni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday 14th July the public and the Exploris Aquarium seal rescue team will gather at Knockinelder beach, Co.Down to say farewell to grey seals Amphitrite and Doris. They have been at Exploris Aquarium\u2019s seal sanctuary for 10 months and are now well enough to be released back to their natural home. Both seals where … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17570,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568\/revisions\/17570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}