Baby Northern Fur Seal - So Far From Home

Yesterday we rescued our first Northern Fur Seal of the season. A man called early in the day, reporting what he thought was a harbor seal pup on a fairly isolated beach north of Wilder Ranch, which is north of Santa Cruz. There was reluctance to send out a crew to check it out. We had three trucks onsite and six volunteers, plenty of people to drive up there. But, sometimes, reports are trivialized by people who want to wait for a second caller, or say, "Oh, its probably just an elephant seal moulting", without really going there and actually seeing what is going on. 


So we were told to contact the reporting party to get more information, but couldn't reach him. Then, we had a call that one of our volunteers in Santa Cruz had picked up an entangled sea lion and we needed to drive to Santa Cruz to transfer it to our truck. Three of us headed out, picked up the sea lion, and then made a unanimous decision and headed up to Wilder Ranch.


North of the Ranger Station, dirt roads wander through farmlands and overlook several beaches at the bottom of cliffs. Small, rugged trails lead down to several somewhat isolated beaches. Only authorized vehicles are allowed on the tiny dirt roads, so it is only hikers and cyclists that are seen. 


The day was windy and cold, with blowing sand. We stopped often to look with my binoculars over the edge and down to the beach. We slowly drove all the way down to the beach across from Long Marine Lab, turned the truck around in a tiny wide spot and started slowly back. A new volunteer said that she thought she might have spotted something a ways back, but hadn't said anything.We went to that location, and sure enough, a little black spot that looked like it was a rock or burned piece of wood was lying alone on the beach. 


Looking through my binoculars, I said, "OMG, I think that is a fur seal." Impossible? It is way too early and way too far from their usual habitat. Here is what the Marine Mammal Center says about Northern Fur Seals:

RANGE/HABITAT: The full range of the northern fur seal extends throughout the Pacific rim from Japan to the Channel Islands of California, although the main breeding colonies are in the Pribilof and Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. Smaller rookeries (breeding grounds) exist on the Kuril Islands North of Japan, Robben Island in the Sea of Okhotsk, and on San Miguel Island off Southern California. Northern fur seals live almost all of the time in the open ocean, and only use certain offshore islands for pupping and breeding. They rarely come ashore except during these times, and are almost never seen on mainland beaches unless they are sick.


We quickly got our gear unloaded and scrambled down the rocky trail. The tide was coming in and we dared not lose the little guy. Cristi took the net and I took the herding board. Karisa, on her first day, observed. I crept between the animal and the water. Cristi slowly crept up on the animal from behind, and quickly got the net over his head. He came to life, snarling and trying to escape. He was so tiny that he was lost in the net. We got the crate and put the opening of the net in front of the door. 


I just kept bunching up and pulling loose parts of the net to try to get the little guy in. There was too much netting. So I just reached thru the net and got it by the scruff of the neck and put it in the crate. These little guys are biters - they are quick. The have lots of sharp teeth, and can turn their head in an instant to bite you bigtime. But I got him in and fastened the door.


Karisa and I carried him up over the rocks and loose, slippery dirt trail, and secured the crate in truck. We headed back with an unexpected, endangered species: a Northern Fur Seal.


The little guy weighed in at 5.9 kgs, hardly more than birth weight. About the size of a cat. We named him Believe It. A comment on the crap we have to go thru sometimes to just go out and check on a reported animal. 


Believe It was put in a quiet, isolated spot. These animals stress out easily, and can die from it. With their thick fur, they can also overheat easily. With instructions from the vet staff in Sausalito, Marina and I gently tube fed a tiny amount of formula, and gave it a sub-cue of electrolytes. It will go up to TMMC today. I hope that the Ocean Gods will smile on Believe It, and it will survive to swim again in the ocean.


Follow the link to The Marine Mammal center to learn more about The Northern Fur Seal http://tinyurl.com/yzzpagg