SHARE

Maritime Aquarium Mourns Death Of Susie The Harbor Seal

NORWALK, Conn. — The staff of the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is mourning the death of Susie, the harbor seal, who has been a favorite of visitors and staff alike since the aquarium opened in 1988.

Susie the Seal was a favorite of the staff and visitors at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

Susie the Seal was a favorite of the staff and visitors at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

Photo Credit: Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk
Susie the Seal has been at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk since its opening.

Susie the Seal has been at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk since its opening.

Photo Credit: Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk
Susie the Seal was a favorite of the staff and visitors at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. She celebrates her birthday in May.

Susie the Seal was a favorite of the staff and visitors at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. She celebrates her birthday in May.

Photo Credit: Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk

Susie, who is believed to have been the second-oldest seal in captivity in the United States, was 43 years old.

“We’re always saddened by the loss of any animal at the aquarium,” said Brian Davis, president of The Maritime Aquarium. “But, as one of two seals that have been with us since the beginning, as our oldest seal and as the mother of two of the seals we have had here, Susie will always have special place in our hearts. She was the grande dame of our seal exhibit.”

A necropsy at the University of Connecticut will be conducted to determine the cause of death. She had shown no signs of illness.

Life expectancy of a harbor seal is about 15 years in the wild but rises into the 20s and 30s for seals that receive attentive husbandry care in zoos and aquariums. The oldest harbor seal is believed to be a 45-year-old seal in the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wis.

Susie was born in May 1973, but for unknown reasons she was abandoned by her mother when less than a month old. She was rescued on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, by – among others – Jack Schneider, a student who was working on his master’s degree at the University of Rhode Island. 

She participated in the laboratory development of prophylactic heartworm medication, first used for canines and later also approved for seals.

Susie lived at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod before moving to Mystic Aquarium. She – and her daughter, Tillie, born at Mystic Aquarium in 1986 – were two of the three seals that came from Mystic to Norwalk in 1988 for the opening of the then-Maritime Center. 

Susie’s arrival in Norwalk reunited her with Schneider, who served as the aquarium’s curator of animals from 1988 to 2014.

Visitors knew Susie from her lighter fur coloration and from the cataract haze over her eyes, a condition that would have been fatal in the wild but one that she handled with aplomb in the aquarium. 

“Susie has been a visitor favorite for more than 27 years, since the day the aquarium first opened,” said John Lenzycki, the Aquarium’s curator of animals. “There have been children who came here in our early years and visited Susie, and who then went on to grow up to bring their children here to see her. So she helped to inspire two generations of visitors to care about seals and their environment: Long Island Sound and the ocean beyond.”

Lenzycki noted that Susie was senior in age to all but three members of the aquarium’s animal husbandry staff. 

Harbor seals are one of the most common species in New England’s waters. They visit Long Island Sound during the winter before returning for summer to their breeding and pupping grounds in the Gulf of Maine.

Of the remaining six harbor seals at The Maritime Aquarium, the oldest is now a 33-year-old female seal named Orange.

to follow Daily Voice Ridgefield and receive free news updates.

SCROLL TO NEXT ARTICLE