{"id":10203,"date":"2017-01-23T00:15:27","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T05:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10203"},"modified":"2017-01-23T01:25:44","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T06:25:44","slug":"officials-seals-likely-to-be-spotted-on-local-beaches-but-dont-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/01\/officials-seals-likely-to-be-spotted-on-local-beaches-but-dont-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials: Seals Likely to be Spotted on Local Beaches, But Don’t Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A seal on a local beach during the winter of 2016. (Photo: Marine Mammal Stranding Center)<\/p><\/div>\n

Months\u00a0before the summer crowds arrive, a different kind of visitor comes to the Jersey Shore each year \u2013 seals, who like to sun themselves on local beaches on their migration journey.<\/p>\n

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine said over the weekend that we are now approaching the time of year when most seals are found in New Jersey, as temperatures north of the Garden State are at their coldest. The seals, mainly harbor seals and grey seals (as well as on occasional harp seal), come ashore to warm up, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do not need food, water, blankets, hugs, or any human contact,\u201d the center said in a statement. \u201cPlease stay 50 feet away and be quiet so they can rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, just harbor seals have been spotted locally.\u00a0The harbor seals were born last spring and summer, and are \u201cway past needing their mom,\u201d the center said. Grey seals will be recently weaned pups, \u201cbut again, don\u2019t try to give them a hand (literally- you could lose a finger by trying to pet them).\u201d<\/p>\n

If a seal is spotted, local residents can always call the center at\u00a0609-266-0538, and the staff\u00a0will get someone down to the beach to check on them.<\/p>\n

MMSC is the only State and Federally authorized organization in NJ to handle strandings of marine mammals, the statement said. It is a federal offense to handle, harass or otherwise interfere with a marine mammal.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Months\u00a0before the summer crowds arrive, a different kind of visitor comes to the Jersey Shore each year \u2013 seals, who like to sun themselves on local beaches on their migration journey. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine said over the weekend that we are now approaching the time of year when most seals are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[2717,24,2716,182,2718,942,2715],"class_list":["post-10203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shore-environment","tag-beach","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-harbor-seal","tag-jersey-shore","tag-migration","tag-new-jersey","tag-seals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/12764512_1092284804125213_2168164068689920747_o.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Ez","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}