“First we were first aiders – First Aid for Marine Mammals and now we are seal watchers,” say Kees Kooimans and Rinus Noort. “We ride for animals and people.” Kooimans is also a member of the Rescue Brigade, which runs in reverse order. When he drives for animals he gets into the blue car, when he drives for people he gets into the orange car.
Once upon a time there was a man who walked his dog on the beach. That man had a heart attack and Kooimans and Noort happened to be in the area with the seal ambulance. “We wanted to perform CPR, but the dog, a German shepherd, defended its owner and we could not get there.” Kooimans ran home to get a catch stick for the dog. In the meantime, the police and the ambulance had also arrived, but they too could do nothing until Kooimans returned. He caught the dog and pulled it out of sight of its owner. The help came too late.
“It was very impressive,” Kooimans continues, “because the paramedics asked me if I wanted to come to the ambulance with the dog to let him say goodbye to his deceased owner. The dog did this in a special way. He calmed down when he saw that there was nothing left to defend.”
Kooimans and Noort can often be found on the beach, whether something can be saved or not. They love the sea because it is alive. The view is different every moment.
“Have you ever been to Drenthe?” asks Kooimans. “Always the same view. You sit there among the same trees day in and day out. No, that sea, look at that foam, the sky above, the seagulls. Twice a day the tide ebbs and flows, it's always different.” Kooimans lasted two days during his holiday last year, then returned home feeling homesick: “I was born with sand between my toes, that must be it.”
Secret place
The name seal watcher is a bit misleading because Kooimans and Noort drive for all the animals that have gotten into trouble between Bloemendaal and Scheveningen. The coastal strip north and south of their area is guarded by other seal watchers. Most reports are indeed about seals. The gray seal gives birth in the winter, the common seal in the summer. The puppies are on their own after just under three weeks. When they are resting on the beach, people often call to say that there is an abandoned baby seal on the beach. But the puppy is not abandoned, he just wants to sleep for a while and that is not possible with all those people and dogs around him. So, after receiving a report, Kooimans and Noort get back into the car to load the puppy and take him to a safe place where he can continue to sleep undisturbed.
That place is secret to prevent hikers from looking for young seals. After 24 hours, Kooimans and Noort always check to see if the puppy has found its way back to sea. If it is still there, they will discuss what should be done with the seal sanctuary A Seal in Stellendam. If the seal is sick, for example if it has lungworm, they transport the animal to the shelter where it receives medical care. But usually the puppy has already left the beach. Then they see a trail straight across the sand from the sleeping spot to the sea.
“We were recently called about a beaver,” says Noort. He shows a video of an animal struggling in the surf on a deserted beach. At first it seems to be some kind of guillemot, but then suddenly a beaver crawls onto the sand. “It had ended up in the sea via the locks and the pumping station at Katwijk. We took him to the wildlife sanctuary and he drank water there for three days. He was so thirsty after all that time in that salty water.”
They say they receive reports of turtles, seahorses, a sunfish, beached beaked dolphins, porpoises and once a beached wild boar.
Seal keeper Rinus Noortincluding a washed-up seal pup that is marked and taken to a quiet spot on the beach.
Seal hunting
The seals on the Dutch coast are doing well. This is because seal hunting has been banned since 1962 and the sea water has become cleaner over the years. The seal sanctuary in Pieterburen also contributed to this. Since then, the animals have been monitored everywhere and are well protected. As soon as a seal shows up with a fishing net around its head, the seal watchers go out. If the seal is injured, it will receive treatment in one of the shelters. If the animal needs to recover alone, the seal keepers will place a sign next to the resting seal stating that people must keep their dogs on a leash and keep a distance of thirty meters. You cannot simply move an adult seal weighing two hundred kilos or more. That's why there's a sign next to it.
“People sometimes think that seals are toys,” says Kooimans. “Sometimes a harbor seal pup wants to take a rest on the beach in the summer, but he cannot reach the shore because recreationists keep swimming around him all the time, preventing him from coming ashore. They try to pet him, chasing him and scaring him. But a seal needs to rest every now and then, which is why we also provide information because seals are wild animals that can bite quite a bit.”
When the seal watchers receive a report of a seal, they always go to take a look. They want to know whether the stretch of beach where it is located is busy. “We always check how he is doing. And whether he has trouble breathing. If they have lungworm, you will see them asking for air. Then we take immediate action. But if he looks like a banana, head and flaps up, then we are dealing with a vital animal. That's how we prefer to see them. If they are still young, we spray some yellow paint on their backs and move them to the rest area.”
The yellow paint stays on for a while so that Kooimans and Noort can recognize the puppy later. If it is a howler – these are the puppies that still drink milk from the mother – then they ask the bystanders if a mother has been seen. If that is not the case and no mother shows up, they take the animal to the shelter, where it can recover with fish porridge. Howlers are not often found on the beaches of North and South Holland because most puppies are born on the Wadden Sea or in Zeeland.
While the seal watchers are on their way along the beach to the rest area to check a pup they deposited there the previous day, barking dogs rush towards the car. The owners are talking to each other and not paying attention. Noort shows a photo of a puppy that was attacked by a dog. That puppy did not survive.
“I look at everything,” says Kooimans, who drives the truck. “To animals, to people, far ahead. In the summer, tourists dig those holes and if you're not careful, you'll hit your wheels.”
Deer chased into the sea
Kooimans and Noort get out to look for the puppy in the slope of the dune, but it has disappeared. A good sign. “Sometimes they stay there for hours,” says Noort, “sometimes they crawl straight to the sea after being released from the basket.”
Noort shows another video. A deer bobs in the sea. His antlers like a sail above the waves. “Walking on the boulevard, completely lost and chased into the sea by all those day trippers.” Kooimans then called in his son. The deer was not allowed to feel solid ground, otherwise it would run away again. As soon as the animal came loose from the bottom and had to start swimming, Kooimans and his son threw a towel over its head, turned it on its side and dragged it out of the water by its legs and antlers. They placed him on a trailer and Kooimans sat on the animal's neck to transport it. A little later they released the deer back into the dune reserve, safe and sound.
When asked whether they will ever stop it, Kooimans says: “We don't have time for that. The work is too beautiful. We recently pulled a German out of the sea. It had gone too far into the water. He said to me later: “That's more“, and then I said: well, no, it's not a lake, this is much bigger, this is the North Sea.”
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