Bennett said fur seals could appear in unusual places, including paddocks, backyards, roadsides and inner-city streets. <\/p>\n
\u201cKekeno are usually found on rocky shores, though their natural curiosity sometimes leads them to explore inland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we approach winter, young seals will begin to venture further afield, so it\u2019s not uncommon to find them on roads, backyards, or other strange places.\u201d<\/p>\n
The advice for anyone encountering a seal was to keep at least 20 metres away, not feed or disturb the animal, avoid getting between seals and the sea, and keep dogs and children away.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople should enjoy observing them from a distance and only contact DoC if they are in immediate danger, such as being on a road, severely injured, or tangled in debris.\u201d<\/p>\n
A woman who lived in the area and did not want to be named said she was \u201cshocked to see a seal so far from the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n
DoC and police arrived shortly afterwards, and the seal was guided across the road and back into a nearby creek.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said he\u2019d probably have a belly full of eels and should make his way back home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resident said she had lived in the area for about four years and had never seen anything like it before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt sorry for the poor little fella being so far away from home.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said other residents suggested the seal may have been seen in the Taradale area over the past couple of days.<\/p>\n
Police confirmed they were notified of the incident about 8.40am on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bennett said fur seals could appear in unusual places, including paddocks, backyards, roadsides and inner-city streets. \u201cKekeno are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[74,296,3607,111,139,69,530,147,30394,17294,23741,85464,112784,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-388251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-into","10":"tag-napier","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-residents","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-seal","17":"tag-suburb","18":"tag-surprises","19":"tag-taradale","20":"tag-wandering","21":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388251","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=388251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}