As the centre’s display curator, Vervaecke is in charge of the welfare of thousands of animals. “We have two sea lions, four otters, five seals, 12 penguins, plus sharks and a few thousand fish,” Vervaecke says. His team makes sure all these creatures receive adequate food and care, as well as medication if necessary.

“We try to show rare animals, but only those that will live well in captivity,” he says, adding that most of the animals on display will live longer in the aquarium than in the wild. “For instance, we do not have dolphins or very large sharks. And instead of just bringing in seahorses, we breed them in-house.”

Besides seahorses, Sea Life also breeds jellyfish, octopus and other species at its displays development headquarters in Weymouth in the UK. One of the most famous examples of in-house breeding is Paul, a now-deceased clairvoyant octopus that allegedly predicted the results of eight matches during the 2010 football World Cup. The octopus was hatched in Weymouth and lived in a tank at another Sea Life centre in Oberhausen, Germany. (Paul even had his own agent and was the subject of a documentary called The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus.)

Rescue and rehabilitation

On a more serious note, Vervaecke says he has seen the company’s concern for the welfare of its animals and the conservation of species grow since he joined Sea Life. “Fifteen years ago, if a fish died, we just put a new one in,” he recalls. “Now, if a fish is sick we send swabs to the lab to understand why, or we research why a fish does well in one tank and not so well in another.” Vervaecke estimates that the centre might spend €15 in research and veterinary costs for a fish worth just €2.

Sea Life Centres across the world famously rescue and rehabilitate around 150 seals every year, and the Blankenberge branch acts as Flanders’ only seal sanctuary. “We are responsible for all the seals that wash up on the Belgian coast,” Vervaecke says. “That’s about 30 that we rescue and release back into the sea each year.”

Anybody who comes across a baby seal on the beach can call Sea Life – day or night. The team will examine the seal and, if it is sick, bring it to Blankenberge for a thorough check-up and nursing. After three months of care, the young seals can triple their weight – from about 10 to 35 kilos. “We give them medication and food – first a kind of fish soup that we intubate, and then, if they get better, we move on to actual fish,” the curator says. “Our survival rate is about 90%, which is very, very good.” Sea Life Blankenberge has also teamed up with the University of Liège in Wallonia to carry out autopsies on the remaining, unlucky 10%. The university uses the results for research purposes, while the centre gets feedback that helps it improve its care.

Sponsor a seal

Visitors can watch all stages of rehabilitation in real life thanks to the glass walls of Sea Life’s seal clinic. Each seal rescue costs about €2,500. The centre does not receive public funding for this activity but invites visitors to adopt a seal pup and sponsor its recovery. “You do get attached to the animals, of course; in particular to seals and penguins,” Vervaecke admits.

The curator describes himself as a fanatic diver – a passion and skill that helped him secure his job in the late 1990s. Working around sea creatures every day for 15 years doesn’t seem to have dented his enthusiasm for the underwater world one bit. “Oh yes, I still dive,” Vervaecke smiles. “I do a lot of wreck diving on the Belgian and English coast,” he says. Then he rushes off to his next meeting – Sea Life’s international vet is waiting.

www.visitsealife.com/Blankenberge

Visiting Sea Life Blankenberge

The Sea Life Centre in Blankenberge gets more than 250,000 visitors per year, including 50,000 schoolchildren. The summer season is particularly busy; the centre doubles its staff from about 20 to 40 people to cater for the extra influx of tourists.
Most display panels are in Dutch and French, but the centre’s website is also available in English, including educational materials that can be downloaded free of charge and printed out before the visit. The centre is open every day from 10.00 to 19.00.

The Sea Life brand

The first Sea Life Centre opened in Oban, Scotland, in 1979, and the network has grown since then to 44 centres across the world, mainly in the UK and Germany. Together, Sea Life Centres attract about 15 million visitors and employ more than 250 people specialised in marine sciences or fish and animal husbandry.
Sea Life claims to be the number one aquarium brand in the world and the number two visitor attraction in Europe. It is part of Merlin Entertainment, a company that operates a broad range of attractions and is second only to Disney worldwide. Merlin acquired Legoland Parks in 2005 and the Tussauds Group in 2007, increasing its scale more than 10 times in three years. In 2011, the company boasted an annual revenue of about €1.2 billion.