Melanie Gosling
Environment Writer
SHE is about 2 000km away from home and a little on the thin side, so the SPCA is fattening her up before Department of Environment Affairs officials release her – with a hi-tech “backpack”.
She is a subantarctic fur seal from Marion Island, a volcanic outcrop about five days’ sail south-east of Cape Town. No one knows why she swam so far off course, but she arrived in Sea Point last week where she hauled up on to the beach.
Mike Meyer of Environment Affairs’ Oceans and Coast branch was alerted by the public.
“We get these vagrants coming to our coast from time to time, but this is the first adult female subantarctic fur seal we’ve found here. The females usually stay closer to the colony on Marion Island, and it is the youngsters that tend to wander. We’re hoping to put a transmitter on her and release her once she has gained enough weight.”
The purpose of the satellite transmitter is to see where the seal goes and whether the animal survives. She will be taken by boat to just off the continental shelf and put into the water. If she dies, the transmitter will sink with the carcass.
“There is no point releasing these animals if they are not going to survive.”
The seal will be the fourth “vagrant” seal to be fitted with a transmitter and released back into the ocean. One is being released today from Port Elizabeth and two others were released earlier this year from Durban. Meyer said the purpose in releasing the seals with transmitters from different places was to establish which release spot gave the animals the best chance of survival.
The SPCA has another subantarctic seal in its care: a youngster that was found between Misty Cliffs and Scarborough. They are fattening up the young male and will release him as well. Meyer has tagged him, but the animal is too young to carry a transmitter.
Good Hope SPCA Wildlife Unit Inspector Gareth Petterson, who captured the seals with environment affairs, said people posed the biggest problem to vagrant seals.
“Seals probably spend as much time on land as they do at sea, but people can’t stop interfering with them. People should leave them alone and inform the marine authorities.”