[imagesource: Stephan Forder]

Two seals were found stranded on East Beach in Port Alfred, Eastern Cape, recently, with one succumbing to its injuries after being brutally bitten by a dog.

The second seal found stranded was rescued by a Ndlambe Municipality official and is said to be making a decent recovery.

Local man Stephen Forder recorded the events of Friday, August 16, after an exhausted subantarctic fur seal washed up on East Beach in Port Alfred in the afternoon, per Talk Of The Town. See the image above.

The species breeds on some of the islands further south towards the Antarctic, such as Marion, Prince Edward and Gough islands, and so Stephen believes it was probably the extremely heavy winds and the resultant swell earlier in the week that had swept the seal off course.

He confirmed that Animal Control Officer Anel Slabbert from Ndlambe Municipality netted the young seal, and managed to get it into a specialised crate. The seal spent Friday night in Port Alfred, set to travel halfway to Gqeberha the next morning for Anel to hand it over to a specialist from Bayworld where it will be rehabilitated.

Image: Stephan Forder

While this little fella will likely be swimming home to the south soon, another seal had a less fortunate fate.

“Sadly, in an incident earlier in the day on Friday, a young Cape fur seal that had suffered a similar fate to that of the subantarctic seal was mauled by dogs on the same beach where it succumbed to its injuries.”

Dr Greg Hofmeyr, Curator for Marine Mammals at Bayworld, said the poor creature was bitten so badly that it “had no chance of survival”.

“The puncture wounds from the dogs’ teeth were so deep, they went right through the skin and into the muscle which had serious tears,” Hofmeyr said.

Asked how likely it is for seals to remain on the beach in the presence of people due to something being wrong with it, Hofmeyr said it can happen from time to time.

“Cape fur seals strand mostly in spring and especially in summer. In summer, especially in December, Cape seal pups often wash ashore. Vagrant seals, such as Subantarctics, come ashore in the winter. It’s more unusual to find stranded seals in winter: usually it’s older males, or a seal that has something wrong with it.”

But because Subantarctic fur seals come from Marion Island and people are not part of their history, they are less afraid of us and therefore more likely to be killed by dogs when coming ashore to rest.

However, the recent spate of rabies identified as endemic in Cape seal populations in the Western Cape means that we all have to be extra cautious.

“In response to that situation, we have held meetings with local municipalities to plan the way forward if a rabid seal does land on the shore. We have met with Ndlambe Municpality and the State Veterinarian to discuss protocols that we are putting in place. The public will be informed of these,” Hofmeyr said.

A brain sample of the seal mauled by the dog was sent for testing for rabies. The result wasn’t available at the time of publishing.

“Keep your dog on a leash – for the seals’ sake as well as the dog’s”, Hofmeyr said, regardless. “You shouldn’t approach seals or other marine wildlife, no matter how tame they seem.”

[source:talkofthetown]