A live stream of seals in a pool at the Seal Rehabilitation Centre Pieterburen has gone viral in Japan after a post was shared on X. After thousands of views, many donations to the seal sanctuary have been flowing in.

Seal rescue centre in the Netherlands becomes popular online

The seal centre in Groningen noticed that the live broadcast of the animals in the largest pool of the sanctuary had more viewers than usual. "It was strange in itself that there were 300, because usually there are between 30 and 100 viewers on the live stream in a day," Marco Boshoven from the seal centre told RTV Noord.

It was eventually revealed that most of the viewers were coming in from Japan after a Japanese account shared the link to the webcam on X. The post went on to be shared more than 30.000 times and has been viewed over 20 million times.

The donations have also been a pleasant surprise for the sanctuary. "We are about halfway through what we normally receive in a month. We have now achieved that in twenty-four hours," said Bosman. 

Floating seals look like Japanese symbol of good luck

While the seals are cute, that’s not the only reason people are watching the water pups from the specialised animal centre. According to Bosman, when a tea leaf floats upright in tea, it is considered a good luck symbol in Japan. "If a seal hangs in the water with its head straight up, it looks like a tea leaf in a cup of tea."

This has attracted thousands of viewers to the live stream on YouTube, with seal centre employees using translation programmes to answer questions about the seals. There are currently 11 young seals in the pool, gaining their strength before they are released back into the sea.