Seal Rehabilitation - Lauwersoog, Netherlands

A walkway splits this pool down the middle, and the seals swimming either side of it are the ones closest to going home. The camera looks into a Phase 3 enclosure at the Werelderfgoedcentrum Waddenzee in the harbour at Lauwersoog, the final stage of rehabilitation, where the centre says the animals are nearly ready to be released back into the Wadden Sea a few hundred metres away.

Expect long stretches of swimming, hauling out on the ledges, and short bursts of chasing between animals sharing the pool. The Netherlands runs one hour ahead of UTC, two in summer. The number of seals changes constantly, and an empty pool is not a fault: the centre states it never keeps a seal longer than its recovery needs, so quiet water means few animals currently need help.

The Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre took in its first seal, an orphaned pup called Loeskus, on 21 December 1971, and grew into the largest seal hospital in Europe. After more than fifty years in the village of Pieterburen, it moved on 26 April 2025 into this purpose-built centre on the harbour, alongside research laboratories and an exhibition on the Wadden Sea. It receives no government funding and runs on donations.

Did You Know? The seal is the largest predator in the Netherlands, and the centre treats it as a barometer for the whole Wadden Sea. What turns up in a sick seal's bloodwork says something about the water it came from, which is why a rescue centre also runs laboratories.

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