Children get a kick out of sporty seals
Program uses animals as an example for kids

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Comments 0
Published: June 30, 2009

BOSTON — Yes, he’s obsessed with grooming, and he occasionally barks at you, but in most ways Isaac is not your typical fitness instructor. He weighs in at 350, eats 16 pounds of food at a time and he’s only 9 years old. And he’s a seal.

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Isaac is one of five northern fur seals to be featured in a new exhibit at the New England Aquarium that aims to entice an increasingly obese generation of kids to get moving.

The seals twist, stretch, leap out of the water, run on their flippers and shoot like missiles under and between the fiberglass rocks. Isaac even stands on his head. The "Move It!” program at the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center, which opens Wednesday, uses the seals’ athleticism as an example for children.

"Those marine animals will do things that are jaw-dropping at times,” said Tony LaCasse, an aquarium spokesman. "We wanted kids to be inspired by them.”

The seals will dart around the $10 million center, built at the back of the aquarium on Boston Harbor.

The animals are rarely this close to the Atlantic. They live in the Pacific from Southern California to Japan, and north to the Bering Sea. Males grow to up to 7 feet long and 600 pounds, while females are about 5 feet and 110 pounds.

The seals are considered depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and a big reason is the hunters who pursued its pelt — two layers thick and stuffed with 300,000 hairs per square inch. The pelt demands constant grooming, and the seals attend to themselves in an endearing way, contorting their bodies so their long flippers can get the job done.

The center opening is a sign of health at the aquarium three years after it regained its accreditation after repairing shaky finances. The accreditation was pulled in 2003 by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums after financial struggles and layoffs followed two major expansions in the late 1990s.

The new center’s childhood fitness push comes as statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 32 percent of American kids ages 2 to 19 are overweight, including 17 percent who are obese.