CONCERNING SEALS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 8

CONCERNING SEALS

TO Ti33 EDITOR. '• Sir,—Several years ago when the city had, its first seals at the Zoo at Newtowri, I was on ono occasion' watching them being fed, and I thought the process of ■ feeding was pathetic in the extreme, vit... dead fish slapped into them once a day. I remember thinking and speaking about those poor seals several times after the said visit. Since then when I heard they wero dead, I was not a bit surprised. I scorned to anticipate it, for I had reasoned, it out that the natural incentive to [live.had been denied them, or, as the Americans Would say, "You must get busy ■'to'live." AU living nature tells the same tale: you must exercise your functions if you wish to retain or enjoy them: The seal in its natural state does not get its twenty-four hours' food "in one dollop,'' and I think with your correspondent in Saturday's issue that if it is possible to give the imprisoned seal an incentive to live, give it live fish, in the water. Then you will 6ee vim in the seals when they have a reason for swimming, with the added element of pleasure, together forming to a certain extent a call to nature. Please allow mo to repeat that the serving up to the seals of that ono dead meal, which I witnessed, not only impressed me profoundly, but depressed me also, for, without going into detail, it was to me indeed pitiful.—l am, etc., H. ASHWORTH. 22nd December.