{"id":172200,"date":"2025-12-07T15:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172200\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T15:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:24:07","slug":"baby-seal-pays-a-surprise-visit-to-a-local-pub-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172200\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby seal pays a surprise visit to a local pub in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">A quiet, rainy evening took an unexpected turn at a pub in Richmond on New Zealand\u2019s South Island, when a young seal pup wandered inside as patrons sat over craft beer and pizza.<\/p>\n<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Pub owner Bella Evans told the Associated Press that she initially assumed the small figure at the door was a dog-until she took a closer look. \u201cEveryone was like, \u2018Oh my gosh. What do we do? What\u2019s going on?\u2019\u201d she recalled, describing the surprise among customers and staff.<\/p>\n<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">One patron attempted to guide the seal out using a towel, but the animal slipped past him, made its way into the bathroom and eventually squeezed itself under the dishwasher. Staff quickly cut power to the appliance to keep the pup safe.<\/p>\n<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Another customer ran home to fetch a dog cage, while Evans considered how to lure the animal out of its hiding place. Then she remembered the evening\u2019s menu featured salmon.<\/p>\n<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">\u201cI just looked at my fianc\u00e9 and said, \u2018Grab the salmon!\u2019\u201d Evans said. As staff tried coaxing the pup with food, animal control officers were already en route.<\/p>\n<p data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Young seals are known to appear in unexpected places at this time of year in New Zealand, a period local scientists refer to as \u201csilly season\u201d due to the animals\u2019 tendency to explore well beyond their usual habitat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A quiet, rainy evening took an unexpected turn at a pub in Richmond on New Zealand\u2019s South Island,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,57005,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-172200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-seals","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}