Seals and Society: A traveling exhibit from New Bedford Whaling Museum
Seacoast Science Center announces that a new traveling exhibition, Seals and Society, is on display now through December 2, 2023. Created by a team of passionate biologists, in collaboration with New Bedford Whaling Museum, this beautifully designed 12-panel exhibit dives into the daily lives of seals, with special focus on harbor and gray seals, the two most locally abundant species in the northeast region.
Seals and Society shares cultural, scientific, social, and ecological stories about these specially adapted pinnipeds. Stunning photographs, custom graphics, and up-to-date research data bring the viewer into the seals’ watery world to help us understand their lives and our relationship with them.
Gray and harbor seals have been on the Atlantic coast and intertwined with humans for millenia. We share our shores and seas with seals. Seals and Society shares stories of our relationship with them from Indigenous perspective to present day.
Seals and Society compliments Seacoast Science Center’s permanent exhibition detailing the work of its Marine Mammal Rescue (MMR) program. Here, visitors can learn about the response, rescue and rehabilitation of marine mammals that haul out or strand on the shore within MMR’s response territory—Essex, Ma to the Maine border. Additionally, visitors learn about how MMR’s work, along with partner organizations along the eastern seaboard, is helping advance scientific research of marine mammals in the Atlantic and provide insight on the status of our ocean.
Seals and Society was co-Created by Dr. Andrea Bogomolni, Ren Bettencourt, Elizabeth Bradfield, and Elizabeth James-Perry, this exhibit reflects the research and work of many institutions and individuals, created with the support of the New Bedford Whaling Museum (NBWM), the Wheatland Charitable Trust, and the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) with contributing editors Monica DeAngelis (NUWC) and Robert Rocha (NBWM). Exhibit design by Kerri Spero.
You can learn more about Seals and Society at www.sealsandsociety.com. To learn more about Seacoast Science Center and its Marine Mammal Rescue program, click here.
