As she left, she got a phone call from one of her sons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a seal. There\u2019s a seal at the turf.\u201d<\/p>\n
The baby seal was enjoying the rainy weather, splashing around on the school\u2019s hockey fields.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] was so cute,\u201d Arthur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see it was a little bit scared at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur waited with the seal and the school\u2019s caretaker until Animal Control arrived.<\/p>\n
A seal pup was found at Rangit\u012bkei College’s hockey turf on September 7, more than 20km from the nearest beach. Photo \/ Samantha Arthur<\/p>\n
Rangit\u012bkei College principal Penny Keet said the school had never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe poor little thing was probably very disoriented and a bit lost, which obviously it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea how it would\u2019ve gotten to Marton.\u201d<\/p>\n
A teacher on bus duty alerted Keet to the pup and managed to corral it into an enclosed area of the turf fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe poor thing, it had 300 kids trying to look at it,\u201d Keet said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo we were trying to keep the kids away and stop it from being too stressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school contacted the Department of Conservation (DoC) and other animal welfare groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vets were kind of bamboozled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Rangit\u012bkei District Council Animal Control collected the seal shortly after being alerted about 9am and took it to the office to warm up and eat some fresh supermarket hoki before being released on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Animal control officer Kimberly Troughton said the young seal was no more than 10kg.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] just really looked like it had got itself into a situation it wasn\u2019t happy about and [was] really cold and wet and tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troughton believed the seal came up through the Rangit\u012bkei River, then via the T\u016btaenui Stream, before deciding to explore further \u2013 a nearly 40km journey according to Google Maps.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is what they call the silly season for young seals at the moment,\u201d Troughton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilly season [is] when they leave their mothers. They\u2019re quite curious and want to go on a bit of adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n
DoC has dubbed May to September \u201cSeal Silly Season\u201d, when young New Zealand fur seals are commonly found in odd places during their first solo expeditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cKekeno, or New Zealand fur seals, are marine mammals that spend considerable time on land, typically resting but occasionally exploring,\u201d DoC operations manager Manawat\u016b Moana Smith-Dunlop said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough they are usually found on rocky shores, their natural curiosity sometimes leads them several kilometres inland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon to find them on roads, in backyards or even on living room sofas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith-Dunlop said people should always stay 20m away from seals and keep dogs and children clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can help by giving the seals space and watching out for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember that seals can be aggressive if threatened, so avoid getting between the seal and the sea, and remember to never touch, handle or feed a seal \u2013 it\u2019s a breach of the Marine Mammals Protection Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
People should contact DoC if a seal they encountered was in immediate danger, \u201csuch as being on a road, severely injured or tangled in debris\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost seals people encounter are healthy, and behaviours like regurgitating, sneezing, coughing or crying are normal. However, if you see a seal that is severely injured, being harassed, or in danger, please call 0800 DOC HOT (0800 362 468).\u201d<\/p>\n
Animal Control planned to release the seal at Scott\u2019s Ferry near the Rangit\u012bkei River mouth.<\/p>\n
Troughton said one of the best ways people could help seals this time of year was keeping dogs under control.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeeping your dogs under control this time of year is a massive thing for us because of the smell that [seals] put out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dogs were attracted to the smell and may try to attack seals, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when you\u2019re at the beach or around the waterways or at the hockey turf, keep your dogs under control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are wildlife that need a bit of care around this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erin Smith is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As she left, she got a phone call from one of her sons. \u201cThere\u2019s a seal. There\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[292257,28824,1975,12784,34321,1874,112781,12238,12620,9878,130,1304,111,139,69,2885,4062,147,30394,3767,131,8229,303,3590,406,4741],"class_list":["post-592810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-20km","tag-arrived","tag-at","tag-college","tag-cute","tag-found","tag-fur","tag-greeted","tag-inland","tag-monday","tag-more","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rangitkei","tag-school","tag-science","tag-seal","tag-students","tag-than","tag-they","tag-very","tag-visitor","tag-wildlife","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592810","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=592810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}