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Baby Seal Cajoles Crowds to Oregon Coast Beach |
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Covering 180 miles of Oregon coast travel: Astoria, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Nehalem, Wheeler, Rockaway, Garibaldi, Tillamook, Oceanside, Pacific City, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Newport, Waldport, Yachats & Florence.
05/27/08
Secrets of the Season |
Crowds Adore Cuddly Seal on Oregon Coast
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| Baby seal on Cannon Beach over Memorial Day Weekend (photo Seaside Aquarium) |
(Cannon Beach, Oregon) - It was only a few days old, but it sure caused a small frenzy on the beaches of Cannon Beach.
A baby harbor seal, only a few days old, washed up near Haystack Rock in the famed Oregon coast resort town this busy holiday weekend, creating quite the stir.
"It was only a few days old, and still had its umbilical chord attached," said Tiffany Boothe, with Seaside Aquarium. “It left the beach with its mother sometime either last night or early this morning.”
Crews from the aquarium – which is also part of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network – responded to the calls this weekend and posted signs that told people to keep away. They also took GPS readings of the baby seal to see whether it had moved or not.
Crews always do some kind of inspection of a stranded mammal’s health, but nothing too detailed.
“We don’t get very close on live ones,” Boothe said. “We don’t take measurements - just approximations of size.”
This seal, like a few others that have shown up recently, should be left alone.
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| Photo Seaside Aquarium |
Boothe said seal pups are often found resting on shore while their mothers are hunting for food nearby. This is a normal occurrence and you must leave them alone. It's usually just a matter of time before the mother seal shows up to reclaim her young. They can be left alone for days at a time.
Like any baby, they just need to sleep a lot, and that’s all they’re doing. Well-meaning members of the public misinterpret the situation and try to “rescue” them by taking them away. But that’s the last thing they need.
It’s
actually even illegal to approach them.
“In order for this little guy to live, it has to be left alone,” Boothe said.
Its appearance made quite the splash on this busy stretch of beach, with Haystack Rock bringing in hundreds over the course of a day.
“It’s
a really high profile area,” Boothe said. “With the busy weekend,
there was more people there, and more people giving it a lot of attention.
Usually people are really, really good about staying away once we put
up the signs. Those signs make people aware of the pup and aware that
it’s being monitored.”
Now through the fall is the birthing season for harbor seals, so more of these adorable creatures will wash up.
April 18 saw the first one of the season. A newborn harbor seal pup wandered up to the fishing docks at Warrenton, which caused some concern among the fishermen. Another showed up in late April, just a tad south of Fort Stevens State Park. Another showed up in early May, also on Cannon Beach, near the Mo’s Restaurant.
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 Inn
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Arch
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Dozens of homes in that dreamy,
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sea. |
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