Monday, May 20, 2013
Seal turns up on Sunset Beach, thousands of miles away from home
POSTED: 05:17 p.m. HST, Aug 01, 2012
A seal that would normally live in waters around the Aleutian Islands and California has shown up thousands of miles away on a beach in Hawaii.
David Schofield, a marine mammal response coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says people found the northern fur seal near Sunset Beach on Oahu's North Shore. It was emaciated, underweight and weak.
Schofield said Wednesday this is the first time on record that a wild fur seal has come to Hawaii. Hawaii's only native seal is the endangered Hawaiian monk seal.
It's not clear how the female visitor, a young adult, got so far south.
The seal doesn't have a tag and it's not clear where she's from. NOAA officials have taken her to the Honolulu Zoo to be cared for.
