Seal Sitters‘ Robin Lindsey shares that online “card” as holiday greetings for you, as the all-volunteer organization wraps up a year to remember with this report:

As 2011 comes to an close, Seal Sitters would like to thank the West Seattle community and WS Blog for your continued support. This has been a record-breaking year for us. Our hotline has fielded 618 calls from all over the Puget Sound region since the harbor-seal pupping season began in late June. Since early August, our West Seattle volunteers alone have logged over 140 responses to seal pups, looking after 50 different pups – a number of whom hauled out repeatedly for many days in a row. And our Sno-King volunteers responded to numerous marine mammals from the Seattle waterfront as far north as Tulalip. We distributed more than 5,000 Share the Shore informational brochures at street fairs, outreach events and on the beach.

Seal Sitters has a binding agreement with NOAA to respond to marine mammals from Brace Point (south of the Fauntleroy ferry dock) to Kayak Point (north of Everett in Snohomish County), donating thousands of volunteer hours each year to this effort. It is truly a labor of love, but we depend on contributions to meet ongoing operating expenses, including the dedicated hotline, supplies, educational materials, website and blog. If you’d like to support our work, a tax-deductible donation can be made online. For volunteer opportunities or to comment, please e-mail us – we appreciate your feedback.

We’ve enjoyed talking with so many of you along the beaches this year and send wishes for a happy holiday season. Seal pups continue to use the shoreline (we had a pup just this morning) and will do so throughout the winter months, so please give the hotline a call @ 206-905-7325 (SEAL) if you spot a marine mammal on the beach. Spanky, Sly and the seal-pup gang thank you for giving them some space to rest and warm up!