Every winter we have the same problem on beaches in the North of the Netherlands: orphaned baby seals. When a baby seal is born it depends on its mother for the first few weeks. But the mother can't stay with her baby all day, she needs to eat, so she's often hunting for hours. During those hours the baby seals are left alone on the beach and that's when they are easy to approach by people.

 

Unfortunately people are mostly unaware that their presence can have major consequences for the baby seals. If people come too close this may scare away the mother. She might not dare to come back to her baby when people came too close. Leaving behind an orphaned baby seal.

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Seal sanctuaries already did research and the big solution is to make people keep at least 30 meters distance. At this moment there already are "seal watchers". Hired by seal sanctuaries. These people are monitoring seals and when they see that something is wrong, they bring the seals to the sanctuary. I think the easiest solution is to make signs for the seal watchers to put around baby seals when they think the seals need protection from people.

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But a sign that doesn't explain anything and simply tells you: these are the rules deal with it, isn't fun. I wanted to make a sign that invites people to learn about seals a let them take a closer look, from a safe distance. I want people to be happy to see my sign because it is fun to use. And I understand that people want to take a closer look. A baby seal isn't something you see every day, and to say the least, baby seals are super cute!