Hello all, Another PaddleWise member just suggested that I should add to the proposed clickable eco map that paddlers should not pick up baby seals they find on the beach. This past weekend, I visited the Laguna Beach seal and sea lion rescue facility in Laguna beach. According to personnel at the facility, we are almost at the tail-end of seal and sea lion pupping season and now entering the pupping season for elephant seals. One of the biggest complaints from the personnel at the facility comes from people picking up baby seals found on the beach thinking they are orphans. When people do this, they have just guaranteed the pup is an orphan. More than likely, the mother is off in the water searching for food. Now, the rescue operation is left with a baby that will have to be nurtured until it is ready to be returned to the ocean. The babies are grouped by size. A common ailment is seal pocks (like small pocks) because of stress. The rescue personnel we talked to told us about a story where a local woman found a baby seal and took it home and put it in her bathtub. The rescue person informed us that baby seals like community and get very lonely when not with other seals (which can mean a lot of barking as they cry for their mothers or other seals). So the woman decided to provide this baby seal with companionship by letting her dog into the bathtub with the seal. Fortunately, she called animal rescue and they were able to save the baby seal from this woman's misguided "good intentions." There is a big fine for interfering with marine animal life. Don't pick up baby seals you find even if you are convinced it has been abandoned. Call an animal rescue operation or the police (who have such numbers available to them). I have several numbers on the GASP website for stranded marine animals in the US. For those numbers, see: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/stranded.html. Cheers, Jackie _ _ _ _ _ \\ / \0/ \ / \0/ \ \\ " " `\ ,sSSs,\, )\w/( ,sSS..)/{) <<..> sSSS_v)/ \ )<*> sSS[(\_]___\ <(_/_o_o_ 'sS[_`-+---+) \----+-------+-------'---`-----\-------------') ~~~~~~~ ~~jf ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~\~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ o \ o \\ o o \\ o o ` (\ o o >jf:-) o (/ o *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
Jackie wrote; >One of the biggest >complaints from the personnel at the facility comes from people picking >up baby seals found on the beach thinking they are orphans. Who has not been tempted to fondle the silky supple body of a wanton young seal. It is enough to drive any young west coast lad to cast away his Victoria's Secret catalogue and go screaming wildly to the beach. And is it all his fault? Driven wild with desire by non co-operative feminists trussed up in vinyl and already pierced with enough hardware to set off all the security checks at LAX from a distance of twenty paces. Certainly the seals are not entirely blameless, batting those big liquid brown eyes at everyone who passes and writhing sensuously on the sand. This is no new phenomenon. For centuries Selkies have been luring unsuspecting Scottish lads away from the farm. (Sceptics will say they were running away from haggis but we know better) The Selkie was a kind of early days UFO that, unlike modern UFO's that only kidnap housewives, garage attendants, and untenured college professors with a book in the back of their heads, only took rural young Scots who could not afford a ticket to Edinburgh. That the precise amount of a train ticket to Edinburgh was usually missing after the young person disappeared was only a coincidence. Various misguided church women's groups have done nothing to alleviate the problem on the west cost beaches. Armed with Gucci shopping bags filled with cast off Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein they have been ranging the beaches in an attempt to cloth the seals. It avails them nothing. I myself have seen a pre-pubescent beach bunny being lured behind a red Corvette by a seal dressed in a Chicago Bulls jacket and trailing the scent of candied licorice. Perhaps it is time we became more enlightened regarding trans species relations. I know it has only been recently that we abolished miscegenation laws in the US but are we not capable of extending equal rights to all. Even so, I can sympathise with the residents of the beaches. Having pimply faced juveniles picking up seals in your front yard is not good for property values. Both parties could get on with it better in a trendy night club than on the beach where all can witness their lewd and lascivious acts. Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G Transcribed by his humble servant John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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