THE NAMES OF PROTECTED PLANTS ARE GIVEN TO THE RESCUED SEALS

In the pools of the Lithuanian Maritime Museum, pups of Baltic gray seals brought weak and sick from the sea in the spring are recovering fast. As many as 22 of them were found this year, 3 of them were unfortunately not saved by the museum specialists.

2022 has been declared the Year of Animal Welfare by the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, therefore special attention is paid to Baltic gray seal pups and the names of the pups were chosen in cooperation with the State Service for Protected Areas under the Ministry of the Environment.

At the suggestion of the State Service for Protected Areas, the country's schoolchildren collected names for seals from Lithuanian plants in the Red Book. The names of the small seals that were thrown off the shores of the Baltic Sea were collected by schoolchildren who came to the National Visitor Center of Protected Areas and sent name suggestions.

More than 300 names were received, but not all of them met the established rules. Many unique and great-sounding names have been proposed to name the seals, which name the protected plants.

The most common names suggested by children for seals are pajūrinė zunda, raktažolė pelenėlė, paprastasis kardelis ir porinis česnakas. It is obvious that when proposing names, Lithuanian schoolchildren were interested in protected species and were curious about what grows on the shores of the Baltic Sea and in Western Lithuania.

Most of the names for seals were sent by schoolchildren from Vilnius. Class 2c of Antakalnis pro-gymnasium and kindergarten-school „Vilija“ were extremely active. All „authors“ of the nineteen names will be awarded prizes of the Lithuanian Maritime Museum.

The convalescing seals are named after the shorter names of the protected plants: Smiltė, Vikis, Svila, Kardelis, Šiurpis, Zunda, Gvazdikas, Sotvaras, Plauretis, Laibenis, Mėlytas, Skiautalūpis, Vikšris, Dobilas, Lūgnė, Česnakas, Blizgė, Dirsuolė and Slyva.