Week 3: Seals, Sun, and Sand

The third week of the trip found us in a place completely different from Berlin. Büsum, Germany is a small town located on the North Sea. We jokingly referred to it as the Florida of Germany, if that gives you any indication of the demographics there :) I loved it there. We stayed in a cute, resort style hotel just a few minutes walk from the sea and the center of town. On our way from Berlin to Büsum, we stopped at the "Seel Center" in Friedrichskoog where we got to view the different types of seals (seehunds) and watched a demonstration on how they are trained. The center is also the place where injured seals and seal pups are brought if they are found stranded on the beach. There is a quarantine area where the pups stay initially. They are then rehabilitated and can then hopefully be returned to the wild. Later in the day we went to the Multimar Wattforum Centre, which is the information center for the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. Our guide was very knowledgable and taught us a lot about the ecology and creatures that live in this area.

The second day in Büsum was spent at the Aquatic Wildlife center. Several of the professors and vet students there gave lectures about their research involving marine mammals, and we got to participate in two necropsies! One was on a porpoise and the other was on a harbor seal. The porpoise died from choking on a fish, the fish was caught in the larynx. The seal died from a volvulus but also had a necrotic placenta. All of the organs were removed, parasite samples were taken, and the amount of blubber was measured for a student's project. These necropsies are important in that they help  

give veterinarians and biologists an idea as to what the health of the population of the seals as a whole is. Dinner later in the evening was amazing. Our study abroad group plus several vet and masters students went to eat at Kolles Alter Muschelsaal where we ate a delicious meal that consisted of several courses such as asparagus soup and stuffed fish. The restaurant is owned by what is known as a "seal hunter," which is a misleading name. Seal hunters nowadays are the ones that are called out when a seal or other marine mammal is stranded on the beach. They evaluate the health status of the animal and then transport the animal to a seal station where it can be cared for and hopefully nursed back to health. Last year alone seal hunters were able to help over 200 seals!

The last day in Büsum ranks as one of my favorites from the entire trip. For the first half of the day we did a mud flat hike led by a guide. We had so much fun finding our way through sand, mud, and all of the seashells while our guide pointed out different kinds of birds and other creatures living in the mud, such as jellyfish, little crabs, and lugworms. There were areas where we sunk in the mud all the way up to our hips! It was amazing to essentially walk on what makes up the ocean floor for part of each day. The second half of the day was beach time! It was the perfect day for it. Everyone spent most of the afternoon just reading and napping on the sand, but some of us (even the Texans!) swam out into the North Sea, if only for a few minutes, it was so cold! Later that evening we went out with a couple of people we had met at the Aquatic Wildlife center and ended up at a German karaoke bar, and I will never listen to Proud Mary the same way again. All in all, it was a great few days and we got to learn a lot and meet several interesting people!