Fish Meal
A volunteer feeds a gray seal pup a herring at a seal-rehabilitation center in the Netherlands on January 12.
More than a hundred of the young marine mammals have washed up along the country's northern coastline following recent storms, according to the Agence France-Presse news service.
The incident is an extreme example among a recent increase in pup strandings, experts say. Overfishing has reduced the seals' available prey, and the polluted fish the animals do catch often make them sick.
"In the last two or three years we have seen more and more seals wash up too weak to look after themselves," Lenie 't Hart, director of the Zeehondencrèche seal nursery, told AFP.
(See "Baby Harp Seals Being Drowned, Crushed Amid Melting Ice.")
Pictures: Baby Seals Rescued After European Storms
More than a hundred baby seals are recuperating at Dutch and U.K. nurseries after being stranded amid recent storms, experts say.