A Sendoff Into the Surf

Boisterous Crowd in Md. Bids Farewell to Recovered Seal

About 500 people showed up to witness Sand Dollar head back into the Atlantic Ocean. The seal was found beached Jan. 3 in Virginia Beach. (Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

OCEAN CITY, March 15 -- With a last glance at the fellow mammals cheering on the beach, the young harbor seal they'd named Sand Dollar plunged into the surf Tuesday, headed at last for home.

About 500 people, three dogs and a police horse bade the dappled brown seal a noisy farewell, ending a saga that began in January, when a marine animal rescue team found the seal, starved and hurt, on the shore in Virginia Beach. For more than two months, aquarium staff in Virginia and Baltimore cared for the seal's injuries, helped her double her weight and prepared her for a release that was the first on the Delmarva Peninsula.

It seemed, to caregivers and many in the crowd, like sending a child into the wide world.

"Come on, little girl. . . . Come on, honey," blue-jacketed staff members from the National Aquarium in Baltimore cooed, as Sand Dollar, scarcely bigger than a cocker spaniel, wriggled from a blue crate onto the beach, where they affixed a satellite transmitter to her fur, the better to keep in touch.

"Oh. Oh. God bless nature," said Jim Mathias, the mayor of Ocean City, as the seal, whiskers twitching, caught a first scent of the ocean.

Dave Quilter of Ocean City was there, too, having arrived at the beach early with his daughter, Samantha, 8, in his pickup, and his big yellow dog, Duke, going nuts in the back. Quilter, a rugged-looking man who owns a surf shop downtown, works on the aquarium's marine animal rescue team and in Ocean City's animal control unit, where "I do all kinds of stuff, like checking storm drains for baby ducks."

Until now, his biggest job was helping to release Inky, a young pygmy sperm whale, in 1994. The whale was beached in New Jersey on Thanksgiving Day, 1993, after having eaten more than three square feet of plastic and a Mylar balloon.

"It is such an emotional feeling to let them go because you put so many hours and hard work into rehabilitating them," Quilter said, as Samantha blurted the moral of Inky's story: "Don't dump trash."

The Baltimore aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Program responds to about 35 marine animal strandings a year and has released more than 50 patients since its founding in 1991. Only about one-quarter of the animals the group treats can be returned to the wild, and many that it sees die, with humans responsible for at least half of injuries.

Sand Dollar, christened by a schoolchild in a contest sponsored by the aquarium, was found on the shore in Virginia Beach on Jan. 3. Emaciated and dehydrated, the 8-month-old seal had wounds to her left eye, neck and shoulder. Rescuers don't know how the injuries occurred. She was rescued by the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, which treated her injuries and brought her weight up. A month later, the animal was transferred to Baltimore, where a marine ophthalmologist treated her eye and determined that she was still able to hunt.

So it came to pass that Sand Dollar's sendoff took place on the beach in the Ocean City Inlet, its roller-coaster loops and candy-colored signs looming in the distance, like a childhood left behind. Parents and grandparents and scores of small children braved 45-degree temperatures and a bracing wind to watch the seal, still petite at 85 pounds, flop from her crate. The aquarium handlers glued a $2,000 transmitter about the size of a deck of cards to her neck. The device will be lost with the seal's winter fur but meanwhile will provide the aquarium with information on her habits and health, which the public will be able to track on the National Aquarium's Web site, www.aqua.org.

A hush fell over the crowd as the staff moved away and Sand Dollar made her slow way to the surf. A wave washed over her head, dripping from her muzzle. "Oh, that must feel good," somebody said, and the seal plunged into icy emerald water, as everyone cheered.

"I guess with so much bad in the world, it's nice to have a little bit of positive," Quilter said. He put his hands on Samantha's shoulders, and the two stood at the water's edge, sun on their faces, as the seal glanced back, then headed north.

"A good sign," Quilter said, then watched, until glittering froth was all he could see.