Thursday, November 15, 2007

Baby seal walks a mile to Californian animal shelter

A baby seal is recovering after being found wandering the streets of a Northern California town. The five-month-old Northern fur seal waddled about a mile from the Pacific Ocean and ended up at the front steps of the Tracy Animal Shelter in Tracy, about 60 miles east of Sacramento.

Tracy Animal Control supervisor Ben Miller and his assistant, Beth Palacios, caught the 5-month-old northern fur seal with a catch-pole and locked it in a cage in their truck to await its rescuers from the Marine Mammal Center.



Three sets of fish hooks had pierced the 13- to 17-pound seal’s lips. It’s likely the animal strayed in search of food, as it is a bit underweight, said Jim Oswald, spokesman for the nonprofit marine mammal clinic.

“This is by far the most exotic thing we’ve caught,” Palacios marveled. “Normally, all we see are cats, dogs, rabbits and those kinds of things.”

There's a news video on this page.

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