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Think of Blakeney and you’ll probably think of the Harbour or the Point, and on Blakeney Point, you’ll probably think seals. A seal trip - spotting seals from a boat out of Blakeney or Morston - is one of the must-do things for visitors to the North Norfolk coast.

It’s easy to see why. A seal is cuddly - if you don’t get too close - with an "Ah!" - factor canine phisog and upward glances from big eyes which cry vulnerability. Seals were enshrined in the public psyche some decades ago with those pictures of Canadian fur hunters slaughtering seal pups (when, as it happened, the same thing was going on around the Wash). These days, most people want to see the complete animals hauled out like bananas on some sunny sandbank rather than their furs on a catwalk which is why boats chug regularly out of Blakeney and Morston Creeks on the top half of the tide, loaded with those who would spot.

And seal spotting at Blakeney Point is easy. The Point is one of the big hauling out places for the colony which inhabits the Wash and adjacent coasts. There are others such as Donna Nook in Lincolnshire and Scroby Sands off Yarmouth but Blakeney Point is a short boat trip on sheltered water with plenty of terns, oyster catchers and gulls for a side show and a tea room and strolls in the dunes for afters. Seal spotters bob twenty metres offshore while the spotted lie in rows of indifference with only the occasional glance outwards, secure in the knowledge that they could be back in the water with barely a flip if someone so much as said cull rather than gull.

The Wash seals are a mixture of grey seals - Halichoerus grypus - and the smaller common seals - Phoca vitulina - the latter being more numerous on this patch. Indeed, the majority of English common seals live on this part of the coast (though there are many more of both species in Scotland) and they tend not to venture very far, mainly perhaps because there are lots of flat fish and shellfish to provide easy meals without much of a chase.

But they do sometimes cross to the near Continental coast which is probably how the latest catastrophe - the return of phocine distemper virus (PDV) - came to afflict them in 2002. This is a nasty virus, killing many seals in its own right and killing a lot more through secondary infections which get past suppressed immune systems. Its direct effects include encephalitis with attendant fits and convulsions, together with nasal discharge and coughing which are often followed by pneumonia. Stricken animals, unable to dive for food, haul out to rest and then, too weak to move, get left by the tide. Coughing among animals hauled out in close proximity and a virus incubation period of 10-14 days seem to be part of the rapid spread mechanism.

It is also a selective virus, affecting mainly common seals rather than greys. First seen in 1988, it killed about 18,000 commons in Europe, including 3000 in and around the Wash, but only 400 greys. This latest epidemic, which has involved commons in almost every case, began on the east side of Denmark early last summer, quickly rounding the Danish peninsular and running down the Dutch and French coasts before breaking out in the Wash in July. Since then, it probably wiped out two thirds of the local population which had only just returned to its pre-1988 levels.

There isn’t much resistance. In the wild, seals are thought to live for 20-25 years (up to 40 years in captivity) and that means that there were still survivors from the 1988 outbreak who may have had a little more resilience. But otherwise, the main line of defence ran through East Winch near King’s Lynn where the RSPCA Wildlife Hospital devoted an increasing amount of its resources to seals picked up from the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts.

Not that it had spare capacity as such. Like any hospital, it has to deal with anything that comes in and casualties from among most indigenous vertebrates are likely to be found there from time to time. It is a place of departments, geared to the wide ranging needs of the various species. Recuperating swans and ducks occasionally stroll the corridors as patients do.

The seals - or those not well enough to use the outdoor pools which means all of them on arrival - were housed indoors in concrete pens, each with a bath big enough to allow them to immerse and keep cool. Some could feed, others had to be encouraged to eat while the most sick were force fed fish soup via a funnel and tube. The work was intensive and a little strenuous. Getting food into a wild animal heavier than most dogs which may be ill but can still bite takes technique.

But the hospital’s 20 staff working in three shifts have had plenty of practice lately. Back in the late summer, up to five seals a day were coming in, according to veterinary manager, Ian Robinson, and one of the problems, he said, was that their condition was deceptive.

‘We expected that we would get a high mortality rate from the virus itself but we thought that those that got through the first couple of weeks - we hoped for at least half the intake - might survive. And at first things seemed to be going well, but after a while most of the survivors developed secondary problems, particularly a herpes virus which got them while they were immuno-supressed. A lot died. That was the difficult part. If a seal comes in sick and you can’t cure it and it dies or you have to put it down, you can cope with that, but when it seems to respond and is looking good and it’s been with you for maybe two months, and then in a few days, it dies, it’s harder for the staff to deal with.’

By October, the intake had dropped to about five a week but, says Ian, that was probably an indication that there were far fewer animals left to spread the infection. Indeed, by January when the rate was down to less than one a week, it seemed likely that two thirds of the Wash population had perished. Things will become clearer when the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) based in Scotland does its next fly-over count in the early summer; its previous count was made just before the virus hit.

There is no established cure for PDV and treatment is limited to nursing and feeding infected animals until they recover or succumb. But the hospital has recently started trials with a canine vaccine and it seems to have helped, both with the effects of the virus and in preventing seals from contracting it if they come in for other reasons.

‘It’s actually a canine vaccine’ said Ian, ‘But the problem with canine vaccines is that they are usually multi-targeted. They might cover others problems like hepatitis as well as distemper and every one of those other elements is potentially a risk to the seals - you don’t know how they are going to react. So we got the vaccine manufacturer to make up a batch of purely canine distemper and nothing else. Then we got a licence from the veterinary medical director to use it and we have been doing so for a couple of months.’

While the net effect of the 2002 epidemic will only become clear in retrospect, at least knowledge of the workings of the virus and the treatment of seals is accumulating. In 1988, it was a while before the nature of the infection was known but it was identified early this time and monitored from the outset and the hospital has learned a lot, and not only on treatment but on administration too.

In any normal year, just a few seals are brought in to the hospital where, like all animals admitted, they are numbered and named to avoid confusion. The names for each species are drawn from a particular category such as trees or TV characters or countries. Last year, before the virus struck, the hospital had already decided to name the year’s intake of seals after domestic cleaning materials but by the end of January, there had been 164 seal admissions since the late summer which means that hospital staff also learned a bit about the domestic cleaning market.

But the testament to their efforts by the end of the year was a total of 40 survivors, an increasing number of them with a clean bill of health. By the end of January 2003 some were being returned to the wild. How numbers would look when the SMRU did its count later in the year remained to be seen.

Forty successes may not be a huge number in the overall scheme of things but experience gained this time around will be invaluable next - and there will almost certainly be a next time. In the meantime, this year’s rescue effort means that there should be just a few more than there might have been to haul out at Blakeney Point and be spotted by their appreciative (and economy boosting) audience.

* available from Edgar Spelman, Booksales and Publicity Department, Round Tower Churches Society, 105 Norwich Road, New Costessey, Norwich NR5 0LF, price £18.40 inc p&p. A booklet, East Anglian Round Tower Churches is also available, price £1.20 inc p&p.