Intrepid seal 'chases fish' 100km inland

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.