During the peak breeding season in summer and winter, the centre receives a call every few days from local fishermen or volunteers who spot a sick seal. The animals in the centre are always fed more than they nees, so that they do not make a link between humans and food. Here, a partially blinded seal peeps through a wire fence.
Seagulls often pluck out the eyes of a weak seal.
Seals of Approval Fifty years ago, harbour seals born on the northern Dutch coast would have been wise to get out fast. Hunters eagerly shot them for their fur, killing on average 600 pups a year. Nowadays, although seal hunting is banned in the Netherlands, the mammals are under an even greater threat - that of toxic waste. Lenie 't Hart, a former postal worker, rescued her first seal and took it home in 1961. Her centre, together with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, is also a pioneer seal immunology and virology research centre.