News from Tynemouth
Sealed with a kiss!
A pair of seals at Tynemouth's Blue Reef Aquarium have started kissing their keepers and each other!
The three-year old harbour seals, called Selina and Loffe, are sisters and were born at an aquarium in Norway.
Keepers at the award-winning North Tyneside attraction use a series of environmental enrichment programmes to keep the seals mentally and physically active.
However Selina and Loffe have taken the interaction a stage further by jumping out of the water to kiss staff during talks and feeding demonstrations.
Blue Reef curator Zahra d'Aronville said: "Our team has developed a programme of fun and stimulating activities to provide the seals with constantly changing tasks and experiences.
"As part of this programme we are also encouraging the seals to allow us to get close to them in order for us to be able to monitor their health, look inside their mouths and administer medicines when necessary.
"Selina and Loffe seem to have taken this interaction to another level as they have now taken to coming up to the keepers and kissing them at every opportunity.
"We believe it may have been something they learnt to do at their original home in Norway - the only real problem is when both try to kiss you at the same time. With a diet made up almost entirely of fish, their breath is not always that fresh!" she added.
Opened last year, Seal Cove contains more than 650,000 litres of seawater and features man-made islands, underwater caves, diving pools and a cascading waterfall.
Visitors' first sight of the giant display is via two large underwater viewing panels which provide an amazing glimpse into the depths of the pool.
They then wind their way round along a ramped walkway with a series of further undersea viewing panels until they reach the 'surface' where there is another viewing point onto the landscaped island.
