Human tourists aren’t the only visitors to the Outer Banks in the winter. Lured by the abundance of fish and for them mild weather, migrating seals are now a regular part of the local winter scene according to Jack Horan of the Raleigh News & Observer.
“The newest visitors to the Outer Banks like to swim in the surf, loaf on the sand to catch some rays and gobble down fish dinners.
These visitors aren’t vacationing tourists but migrating seals that swim 500 or so miles to North Carolina during winter and early spring. The ocean-going marine mammals, mostly gray seals and harbor seals, come from growing colonies in New England and Canada.
For a few months a year, the Outer Banks becomes seal country. As many as 34 have been photographed hauled out on an island in Oregon Inlet, the island looking as if it temporarily belonged in Maine.”
[box type=”bio”] Seals have come become annual visitors to the Outer Banks. Read the story in the Raleigh News & Observer.[/box]