Season's greetings from Seal Sitters: 2008 in review
Dec/22/08 06:56 PM
We want to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful holiday season and a most joyous New Year. Your participation and contributions to Seal Sitters have been so appreciated; it has brought together what we see as a new community of people who care about seals and our environment. With that, we look forward to a new year of organization, education, and preparation for what may be a much larger seal season than this year. Regardless, the potential for education, outreach, and research is tremendous with you as a volunteer. We hope to create more opportunities to gather together, learn, and support what is so valuable to us in this beautiful Puget Sound for the benefit of our children, as well the seals’ children!
As we end one year and start the next, we remember that Puget Sound harbor seals are the predominant, and perhaps only, resident marine mammal that typically remains within the Sound year-round. These seals are an invaluable, vital, and integral part of the Puget Sound ecosystem. What some consider “common”, they may be our most preciously common denominator. Although fewer seals came to West Seattle this year, we have learned a lot about those seals who did visit our beaches and we continue to work closely with NOAA and Fish and Wildlife. During this quieter season, SS researched information about pinnipeds and our marine environment, created a new website and spread the word across the country about our work in Puget Sound.
This year, one of our seal sitters, author Brenda Peterson, wrote an article about us in the magazine Wildlife Conservation. To read the article and to see our photographer, Robin Lindsey’s photos, click here. Features on Seal Sitters will also be published in youth magazines early in 2009 ~ education about what we are doing will be read in classrooms across the country! We hope to inspire a new generation to actively participate in helping to save our marine mammals. We will certainly keep you posted and we invite you to visit our website www.sealsitters.org for new updates.
We send this on the day after winter solstice, the first day on which the days start getting longer instead of shorter; a good enough reason to celebrate in itself! We also want to share with you that yesterday afternoon, we received news of a seal in Lincoln Park, a winter solstice seal surprise. Read comments on the West Seattle Blog.
Some say that in this busy world that the greatest gift one can receive is that of one’s time. Thank you for extending yours to the seals as we look ahead to seal adventures together in 2009!
Warm wishes and happy holidays!
Seal Sitters
As we end one year and start the next, we remember that Puget Sound harbor seals are the predominant, and perhaps only, resident marine mammal that typically remains within the Sound year-round. These seals are an invaluable, vital, and integral part of the Puget Sound ecosystem. What some consider “common”, they may be our most preciously common denominator. Although fewer seals came to West Seattle this year, we have learned a lot about those seals who did visit our beaches and we continue to work closely with NOAA and Fish and Wildlife. During this quieter season, SS researched information about pinnipeds and our marine environment, created a new website and spread the word across the country about our work in Puget Sound.
This year, one of our seal sitters, author Brenda Peterson, wrote an article about us in the magazine Wildlife Conservation. To read the article and to see our photographer, Robin Lindsey’s photos, click here. Features on Seal Sitters will also be published in youth magazines early in 2009 ~ education about what we are doing will be read in classrooms across the country! We hope to inspire a new generation to actively participate in helping to save our marine mammals. We will certainly keep you posted and we invite you to visit our website www.sealsitters.org for new updates.
We send this on the day after winter solstice, the first day on which the days start getting longer instead of shorter; a good enough reason to celebrate in itself! We also want to share with you that yesterday afternoon, we received news of a seal in Lincoln Park, a winter solstice seal surprise. Read comments on the West Seattle Blog.
Some say that in this busy world that the greatest gift one can receive is that of one’s time. Thank you for extending yours to the seals as we look ahead to seal adventures together in 2009!
Warm wishes and happy holidays!
Seal Sitters