For ten years, scientist and photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk has turned his lens on the seals, sea lions, and walruses inhabiting the fragile Frisian Islands. This low-lying North Sea archipelago, stretching along the Dutch, German, and Danish coastlines, serves as a stark early-warning system for our warming and rising seas.
A Landscape Forged by Time and Tide
The islands are remnants of Doggerland, a vast landscape drowned after the last ice age. Today, they form the Wadden Sea region. The largest of the Dutch West Frisian Islands is Texel, 15 miles long, famous for its sheep and a fishing fleet whose nets sometimes trawl up ancient bones. These relics of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, mammoth, and even the extinct Atlantic grey whale speak of a very different prehistoric world.
The island chain continues through Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, and Schiermonnikoog. These are mortal places, exposed to the elements. Vlieland once housed crews of the Dutch whaling fleet, and the giant jawbones of Arctic bowhead whales now mark whalers' graves inside the Nicolaaskerk chapel. Seal hunting persisted until 1962, and by 1976, combined with PCB pollution, it had pushed Wadden Sea seals to the brink of extinction.
Marine Life on the Brink
The islands witness many cetaceans, from harbour porpoises to sperm whales, which often strand on the shallow shores. A photographed humpback whale on Vlieland's vast De Vliehors sandbank lies "defeated, an offering, like some kind of pagan sacrifice." Yet, the most populous marine mammals are seals. Harbour and grey seals forage, mate, and give birth here, embodying the islands' resilient life force.
Known as zeehond (sea dog) in Dutch, seals recovered in the 1980s and 90s. While grey seal numbers grow, harbour seals have suffered a 16% decline since 2020. Researchers identify individuals by their unique spotted coats, gained after moulting a pure white puppy coat.
Fragile Havens and Stark Warnings
Remote shores offer relative safety for pupping. Grey seal mothers wean pups for just 19 days before leaving them to fend for themselves. Organisations like Ecomare on Texel rescue casualties. The islands are also vital for birds, though breeding rates are falling sharply.
The climate crisis casts a long shadow. Melting Arctic ice may explain the 2021 arrival of Freya the walrus on Dutch shores, whose journey ended tragically in Oslo. On aerial surveys, Hoekendijk's images show seal herds as abstract shapes, blurring the line between sand and sea. The work captures an ever-fluid environment – often brutal, always beautiful – on the brink of climate breakdown. Yet, the resilience of these animals offers a tentative, fragile hope.
