Intrepid seal 'chases fish' 100km inland

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1124806 [headline] => Intrepid seal 'chases fish' 100km inland [abstract] => A curious baby seal has slithered more than 100 kilometres across New Zealand farmland after an over-excited fishing expedition. [keywords] => seal, fur seal, New Zealand, intrepid, fish, food [content] =>

A curious baby seal has slithered more than 100 kilometres across New Zealand farmland after an over-excited fishing expedition.

The super-travelling youngster was spotted by a shocked Kiwi farmer early on Tuesday as he trudged his way over to his milking sheds.

At first he thought his farm dog Sassy was chasing another dog or an odd-looking possum.

"But when I got a bit closer I wondered what the heck Sassy was chasing. This thing just turned around and snapped at her and it turned out to be a New Zealand fur seal," Nigel Buckley told the Waikato Times newspaper.

His surprise was greater still considering that his North Island farm was more than 100 kilometres from the ocean.

Conservationists believe the three-year-old seal made its long journey from the sea through rivers and drains before shuffling its way across paddocks.

Seal 'chasing a fish'

Marine ecologist Kristina Hillock said seals that travelled this far were usually just curious and had probably been overenthusiastic in its mission to find food.

"It might have been just chasing a fish," she said.

Whatever the reason, the seal didn't seem bothered to find itself so far from home.

It frightened a paddock full of calves before making its way across the farm and sheltering under a tree.

It then crawled under a disused milk tank and took a nap lasting most of the morning.

The seal's adventure was brought to an abrupt end by conservation officials who captured the 20kg creature and drove it to the coast for release into the Pacific Ocean.

 

[start_date] => 04 November 2009 | 01:59:09 PM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => AAP/SBS [commentCount] => 1 [video] => [image] => Array ( [caption] => The young fur seal was spotted by a shocked New Zealand farmer(AAP) [useRegularImage] => 1 [media_library_id] => 130971 [site_id] => 1 [media_library_group_id] => 0 [media_usage_id] => 0 [filename] => site_1_rand_362789002_fur_seal_nz_091104_b_aap.jpg [title] => fur_seal_nz_091104_B_aap_362789002 [description] => file:site_1_rand_362789002_fur_seal_nz_091104_b_aap.jpg [type] => [height] => 338 [width] => 450 [source] => [video_hi] => [video_lo] => [section] => [display_order] => 0 [create_date] => 2009-11-04 14:22:28 [active] => 1 [media_usage] => Article Large [usageWidth] => 300 [usageHeight] => 225 ) [imagePath] => http://media.sbs.com.au/news/upload_media/ [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [1] => Array ( [id] => 1016400 [label] => Arctic fossil shows how seals went from land to sea [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) [0] => Array ( [id] => 1010204 [label] => EU panel approves ban on seal imports [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => [comments] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [articles_ugc_id] => 42157 [author] => manforall [source] => bribie island [content] => Why do we humans keep interfering with nature? We are told how animal species evolved from blob to fish to bird to land based animal. etc. Here we have what may be evolution in real life, the beginning of the change of seals from sea based to land based, and who knows what they may have become, perhaps a smarter species than us. So we chuck it back into the sea and possibly reverse the process of evolution by a million years. No wonder our earth is heading for destruction. [user_headline] => Seal on land [comment_date] => 06 Nov 2009 9:49 AEST [agree] => 0 [disagree] => 2 ) ) ) [winston] => test )