Take A Guided Seal-Watching Hike, Boat Ride Off Sandy Hook This Winter

MIDDLETOWN, NJ ? Seals have returned to Sandy Hook: The cold-water mammals have been spotted in Raritan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean off New York/New Jersey.

This is according to American Littoral Society, the environmental non-profit that monitors this area and is headquartered in Officers' Row at the tip of Sandy Hook.

Every winter, American Littoral Society holds guided seal hikes around Sandy Hook, and they just released the dates for January hikes. All these hikes are free and open to the public; you are just asked to register on their website in advance:

Seal and Winter Waterfowl Walks
Sandy Hook, NJ
Saturday, January 11, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Saturday, January 25, 10 a.m. - Noon
Tuesday, January 28, 12:30 - 2:30 p.m.

"The seals are back at Sandy Hook! Come learn about our pinniped friends and the birds passing through this area with the American Littoral Society on a Seal & Winter Waterfowl Walk," says the group.

Seal-watching boat rides:

There are also seal and bird ecology cruises aboard the Seastreak ferries out of Highlands. Board in Highlands and travel to Sandy Hook and surrounding areas to look for seals, birds, and other wildlife. Select Saturdays & Sundays- January 12, 18, 26; February 1, 9, 15; March 1, 15, 30.

A wildlife expert from the American Littoral Society will be on each cruise.

The tour is 2.5 hours; tickets are $55 Adults, $30 Children Under 12, $50 Seniors (65+). Learn more and reserve tickets here.

Seastreak Seal and Bird Ecology Cruises
Highlands, NJ
Sunday, January 12 through Sunday, March 30

"The waters off Sandy Hook, NJ are well-known for their abundance of diverse wildlife and winter is the best time to see seals and migratory birds! Join the American Littoral Society aboard Seastreak for a Seal and Bird Eco-Cruise to explore the area and learn more about the incredible ecology of this unique environment. Find upcoming dates on the Seastreak website."

About seals off the Jersey Shore

Now that we've entered the thick of winter, expect to see harbor seals pop up all along New Jersey beaches, from Cape May to Sandy Hook, plus in the back bays. Harbor seals can be seen as far south as the Carolinas, but are primarily concentrated off New Jersey, where they appear to love our cold and fish-rich waters, National Park Service ranger Pete McCarthy told Patch in this 2019 article on New Jersey's growing seal population.

Over the last decade, their population has seen a "dramatic rise" at Sandy Hook, said McCarthy.

In New Jersey, seals' only real predators are sharks (back in 2017, volunteers rescued this seal that had been bitten by a shark), and motorboats. That same summer, a seal was found injured in Barnegat Bay, where it had been hit by a motor boat.

On the rare occasion, grey seals and harp seals can also be seen in New Jersey, but it's mostly the Atlantic harbor seal, he said.

Seals have lived off the coast of New Jersey for many years, but their population is steadily increasing every year, according to Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine.

These harbor seals are born in the summer in the much colder waters off Nova Scotia, Maine and Massachusetts, and they migrate south to New Jersey every winter. So the seals that are coming here now are the youngster or teenage seal pups. A pair of seals were even spotted in the Hackensack River in North Jersey in April 2018, a sign the river is getting cleaner.

Along the Jersey Shore, seals can commonly be seen lying in big groups on sand bars, rocks, islands or beaches. During a particularly cold snap in January of 2018, this seal even hauled itself out on a floating ice hunk in the middle of Sandy Hook Bay, making locals think New Jersey had turned into the frozen Arctic.

Harbor seals especially like the Sandy Hook peninsula, because it is relatively isolated from people and they can hunt fish in Raritan Bay, McCarthy said. Seals sleep on land during the day and hunt at night. Sandbars are places for them to rest, relax, digest food and enjoy sunshine.

Groups of harbor seals tend to stay within 15 miles of the shoreline, according to the National Park Service.