‘One wrong turn after the next’: Baby seal spotted at Oka Beach

A baby harbour seal was spotted at Oka Beach, north of Montreal, on Monday.

Patrick Weldon of the Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Response (RQUMM) told CityNews the seal hasn’t been seen since Tuesday, and they’re waiting for it to pop up somewhere else. He added that its chance of survival isn’t great, as it seems fairly thin.

“Because at this time of the year, he should be a bit thicker and rounder, and the seal is vigorous but not super healthy. It’s definitely lacking some food resources,” Weldon said.

He explained that RQUMM is raising awareness of best practices to adopt if people see the seal, including calling their hotline 1-877-722-5346, which is open year round.

Weldon added it’s not uncommon to see seals outside of their usual habitat, especially harbour seals, as they do quite well in freshwater as long as they’re able to feed.

“What is problematic is that in those areas, they’re usually highly populated, bigger density (in) the population, and the potential for human interaction is quite a bit higher, and that can have some very negative impact on the seal’s survival, especially if he needs to rest or if he’s a young individual,” Weldon said.

He explained the seal appeared at Oka Beach probably in search of food or due to inexperience, as it’s a young animal and doesn’t rely on the maternal milk anymore.

“Young harbour seals in the first year of their life do travel quite a bit, and so it’s not uncommon that he’d end up further away from where he was born. Although he might’ve taken a wrong turn and one wrong turn after the next, well, you show up in Oka,” he said.

He said they get a number of calls regarding seal observations in the province. Earlier in May, they spotted a bearded seal not far from Quebec City.

“There are a lot of hypotheses at this point; it’s something that we see fairly often, so we’re not too worried about it.”