A Brooklyn Seal's Trick: Surviving the Gowanus

NY Times ^ | July 2, 2003 | PATRICK HEALY

[presidio9]

Pretty soon, a 1-year-old harp seal that became the talk of Red Hook is expected to paddle onto Long Island Sound, leaving behind its celebrity in Brooklyn for a life of anonymity in open waters.

For years, runners and fishermen have reported glimpsing just such a seal sliding through the Gowanus Canal and its nearby bay. Many scoffed at the sightings, saying the water was too polluted to support anything but sea gulls and a few hardy fish, but the sightings and stories persisted.

One woman even offered a cash reward for proof — $100 for the first photograph of the seal.

That proof came on April 8, when. John Quadrozzi Jr., president of Gowanus Industrial Park, walked in the shadows of a defunct grain terminal that looms beside the Henry Street Basin in Brooklyn. Mr. Quadrozzi and a contractor were examining recent renovations to the pier when they noticed a bruise on the calm water.

They paid the ripples little heed until a whiskered head emerged. It paddled through the water as Mr. Quadrozzi and his companion stared into the bay, amazed.

"It's surprising enough to find fish here," Mr. Quadrozzi said. "The last thing you'd expect to see is a seal."

Word spread quickly.

David Sharps, president of the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, said he had only seen herons, ducks and other bird species on the canal. So when he heard the seal had been found, he called his two daughters and brought them to see.

"They didn't believe me at first," Mr. Sharps said. "They said: `What? You're kidding!' We were certainly intrigued, you know, just in its unusualness."

In fact, harp seals have become a more common sight on Long Island during the past decade, said Rob DiGiovanni, senior biologist of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research, where the seal was taken. It is being treated for dehydration and a nasty case of worms.

Such seals are natives of the North Atlantic and Arctic, but scientists believe a growing population — and shifts in climate and food sources — have pushed populations farther south.

Of the 57 stranded animals that were reported to the Riverhead Foundation this year, 26 have been harp seals. But the 80 percent of those are found on the eastern portion of the island, away from New York City, Mr. DiGiovanni said.

"They have a reputation for popping up in all sorts of strange places," said Greg Early, a marine biologist who has worked extensively with seal populations in the Northeast.

Few places seem less accommodating to a seal than the Gowanus Canal, one of the last vestiges of New York's industrial waterfront. The Gowanus waterway is lined with a cement terminal, oil storage tanks and construction barges. Yesterday afternoon, algae clouded the water, whiffs of garbage floated on the breeze, and backhoes dipped their necks into the bay, like herons looking for dinner.

"It's pretty disgusting," Mr. Quadrozzi said.

Biologists said they would probably never know whether conditions in the Gowanus contributed to the seal's malnutrition, dehydration and parasites.

Shortly after it surfaced, the seal clambered out of the water and made its way over broken asphalt and glass. Mr. Quadrozzi said he could tell the seal was hurt. Blood was smeared across the seal's muzzle, and it lay on its side in the snow, with steam streaming off its skin. It munched a little snow and languidly waved a flipper that was tattooed with lesions.

But after more than two months recuperating at the Riverhead Foundation, the seal has gained weight and swims around its tank with renewed energy. It will be released in the next two weeks, Mr. DiGiovanni said.

The community has grown attached. Before the seal is turned loose, the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation will adopt it and name it Gowanda, despite the objections of Mr. Quadrozzi, who said Gowanda is a ludicrous name for a seal. He prefers Henry.

Theo Christodoulides, who operates the nearby Court Cafe, wants to post a picture of the seal on his restaurant's walls, and he is planning a seafood special featuring "whatever the seal would eat" named after the seal.

There have even been stories of a second seal swimming around the canal, but Mr. Christodoulides is skeptical.

"Maybe it's a fisherman's story," he said.

[ffusco]

I heard Smith was hip now. When I was living in NYC in the mid 90's I was surprised at the pace of change. I used to go to Ludlow's when it was the only bar on the street, now the bars go all the way to Broadway? Near the ramp to The Manhattan Bridge.

I also lived in Fort Green, in my days at Pratt, on Willoughby Ave and Vanderbuilt. Ever been to the Alibi Bar on Myrtle? I alsi lived in Park Slope on 12th and the park. Ever been to Two Boots or Pincthics paint on Atlantic ave?

[Vesuvian]

It's a store that sells all kinds of spices, foods, dried fruits and nuts, you name it, they sell it. I haven't been down that way in awhile, but I used to go there and buy lots of things. Now I just keep walking past Atlantic to this great pastry shop.

[Clemenza]

The Gowanus Canal doesn't frighten me as much as the Gowanus Expressway. Robert Moses's great gift to Brooklyn looks like its going to fall down anyday now on top of Third Avenue.

[Clemenza]

know there are a lot of Middle Eastern merchants up and down Atlantic.

90% of the Arabs in New York are now in Bay Ridge. Fifth Avenue from 65th Street to Bay Ridge Parkway/75th Street has now become the main Arab shopping district for the Tristate area. Take a walk around 'da Ridge and you will see women dressed in the latest in 15th Century fashions.

[Clemenza]

I go to Manhattan to shop. The Island was where the Guidos went in the 1980s since they had something against Manhattan. Now they all go to Jersey.

[Gabz]

The Gowanus Canal doesn't frighten me as much as the Gowanus Expressway.

I have always HATED that road. And it looked like it was going to fall down back in the 60s and 70s.

[Cacique]

The Gowanus isn't going anywhere. The problem isn't in the undertructure which is still sound. It's in the patching and the cheap cement they used to pave the road. They need the Roman engineers who paved the Apian way to teach them how to make cement.

[ffusco]

Wow, just like Flushing is all Korean now! Archie Bunker moved away after Edith passed away, and now that Meathead and Gloria split up, and Joey is in Grad school.............

[ffusco]

Everywhere Moses ordained to build the BQE, he bulldozed entire neighborhoods and slums (on the wrong side of the highway)

[ffusco]

...and created slums on the wrong side.....

[Redcloak]

It's not a seal. It's a chupacabra that's been mutated by the chemicals.

[dighton]

Ping!

[foreshadowed at waco]

This is really hilarious...I live on Vanderbilt between Park and Myrtle...just 3 blocks from Pratt...also I lived on 12th Street 2 buildings in from Prospect Park West in the Slope until 1981 when I bought my building in Fort Greene...I'm probably old enough to be your mother (my daughter is 25) but we seem to have similar housing instincts. I have been to the Alibi as well as Cino's on DeKalb. We now have 2 very upscale Middle Eastern restaurants, 3 coffee shops (not Starbucks), 3 French restaurants that attract people from Manhattan as well as 2 Thai restaurants. All these changes in just the last 5-6 years. We will soon be enjoying an Indian restaurant just several doors down from Cino's as well.

Having owned a property here for 22 years, it's good to see some attractive businesses opening to replace the endless stream of Chinese fast food take out and bodegas. You can walk along Myrtle Avenue at 9 o'clock at night and not feel too edgy.

[Clemenza]

now that Meathead and Gloria split up, and Joey is in Grad school.............

Thankfully, Joey Stivik went to the University of Chicago, where he studied at the Committee on Social Thought and became an orthodox Straussian. He now writes for one of David Horowitz's money-losing websites and still has to depend on dad's weekly check from Berkeley, where his tenured father teaches Subaltern Studies. Behind his back of course, his colleagues still refer to him as "Meathead."

Isn't it funny, btw, how Rob Reiner turned out to be more of a Meathead than the character he played on TV?

[Clemenza]

Having owned a property here for 22 years, it's good to see some attractive businesses opening to replace the endless stream of Chinese fast food take out and bodegas.

Consider yourself lucky. My neighborhood still has many fine restaurants, but everyday a 99 Cent Store seems to open around here.

[Clemenza]

My father is still amazed at the fact that the small frame houses in his neighborhood in Newark (!) are now going for 300K (that's nothing to New Yorkers, but this is NEWARK we're talking about!).

During the next boom, there is a good chance that the Ironbound/Downneck section of Newark will become the next Willamsburgh. The artists have already arrived and we know what that means...

[ffusco]

LIfe imitates art....So to speak.

[ffusco]

I can't tell you how many times I staggered home from the Alibi at 2:30 AM and walked right past your house. I walked down Vanderbuilt (following the B69 route) all the way to Park Slope. Went to Pratt from 87 to 91.

[nutmeg]

FYI

[harpseal]

Hey I could have told anyone there are harp seals in the Connecticut/New York area.