{"id":747257,"date":"2026-07-06T22:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T22:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/747257\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T22:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T22:04:22","slug":"a-seal-pup-was-riding-a-boogie-board-off-the-coast-of-maine-because-of-course-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/747257\/","title":{"rendered":"A seal pup was riding a boogie board off the coast of Maine, because of course it was"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"a-term a-term--primary\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/tag\/environment\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEnvironment\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\u201cYou never know what you&#8217;ll see out on Saco Bay!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let\u2019s face it: If you were a seal, and a boogie board was right there, wouldn\u2019t you get up on it? And that seems to be exactly what happened off the coast of Old Orchard Beach, Maine over Fourth of July weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid03GXBFeR5UGiBetuZQ48D7XQ1ApcmzGDrAAQLpo3gXN7dEY2yckkQN7dro7kcvgGBl&amp;id=100051683484437\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 4 post<\/a> by Capt. Marco Lamothe of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100051683484437\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Keeper Charters<\/a>, a fishing and sightseeing company out of Saco, Maine, his customers had spotted a \u201cgnarly seal pup\u201d while out on a charter trip earlier that day. \u201cThis juvenile had apparently hijacked a boogie board from an unsuspecting tourist and made his way almost all the way back to his colony on Stratton Island off the coast of Scarborough,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere are currently hundreds of harbor seals in that colony, including dozens of pups,\u201d according to Keeper Chaters. \u201cYou never know what you\u2019ll see out on Saco Bay!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"m-article-list__link-wrapper\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/environment\/2026\/07\/06\/a-black-bear-is-apparently-making-its-way-across-southeastern-mass\/?p1=article_recirc_inline_feature\" data-p1=\"article_recirc_inline_feature\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/avon_bear-6a4bb80cd8b1c-768x432.jpg\" class=\"t-amp__list-image m-article-list__image m-article-list__image--full\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA black bear is apparently making its way across southeastern Mass.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apparently the sight of a seal on a boogie board or surfboard isn\u2019t exactly common, although it\u2019s been known to happen, as evidenced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/av\/world-us-canada-66146766\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sammy, the surfing seal from San Diego<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe were fortunate to be able to photograph this scene,\u201d Lamothe wrote after the encounter. You can check out the Orchard Beach surfing seal below.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-A31A2441-Edit-Edit-693af5fa4a424-scaled-1-693af61c23763-242x242.jpg\" alt=\"Profile image for Peter Chianca\"\/>\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/author\/peter.chianca\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Chianca<\/a>General Assignment Editor\t<\/p>\n<p>Peter Chianca, Boston.com\u2019s general assignment editor since 2019, is a longtime news editor, columnist, and music writer in the Greater Boston area.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Today newsletter<\/p>\n<p class=\"m-generic-cta__subtitle\">Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environment \u201cYou never know what you&#8217;ll see out on Saco Bay!\u201d Let\u2019s face it: If you were a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-747257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}