Harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) are frequently rescued as orphaned pups or injured individuals. Understanding rehabilitation welfare and release success guides effective marine mammal rescue programs.
Harbour seal rehabilitation involves a complex welfare balance: intervening to save individual seals while ensuring the rehabilitation process preserves their capacity for wild life. Seals that are handled frequently, housed in small pools, or fed by hand become imprinted on humans and lose fear responses essential for wild survival — releasing them would condemn them to starvation or danger. High-welfare rehabilitation minimizes human contact, uses indirect feeding, houses seals with conspecifics, and provides pools of adequate depth and size for natural swimming. Preparedness for release is assessed by behavioral indicators: appropriate fish-catching skill, fear of humans, and normal social interactions with other seals. Post-release satellite tracking provides welfare outcome data that improves rehabilitation protocols over time.