I saw the most wonderful thing yesterday -- a baby seal, playing (?) in the water, not 20 feet from where I was paddling. He started vocalizing -- a pitiful baby noise, a little barky moan -- when he saw me and seemed to follow me for a little way; I did some fast paddling to get away, when I realized he was approaching me. (Hope I did the right thing, assuming mom was out there fishing or something.) He was just unbearably cute, whitish-brownish shining fur, between 2 and 3 feet long. I'm thinking he was born in the last week, if not the last 2 days. Went around the other side of the island, and saw a mother seal nursing a pup hauled out on the ledge! I remember having read (in a MITA publication no doubt) that kayakers alarm them more than motor boats (the stealth aspect), so I started singing, which caused them to look, and slip into the water. The pup was the same size as the other one -- guess it's the pup season! What a thrill! Does anyone know anything about seal pup behavior -- specifically the seeming to follow me? *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon May 15 2000 - 05:20:41 PDT
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