AN exhausted baby seal, estimated to have been trapped in fishing net for about a week at Manyana beach took about 30 seconds to find its way home without looking back, once freed.
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One of its rescuers, Neal Cameron, said a tourist couple walking along the sand spotted what many people coming down the pathway to the beach missed for several days, even though they walked past close enough to touch the animal.
In its distressed state the creature had kept its head down and was well camouflaged under foliage beside the path.
In the recent big stormy seas it had washed up after becoming entangled in some sort of fishing net, possibly a keeper’s bag, which had then snagged on a small tree.
Neal Cameron from Lake Conjola and mate Adam Williams from Wandandian were also on the beach, so the couple walking told them of the seal’s plight.
“The beach walkers asked Neal and I to help,” Mr Williams said.
“When we found him he was pushed back up into the scrub on the shoreline, with the green fishing net around his head and torso, and was quite distressed.”
Mr Cameron had some gloves and a fishing knife.
“We were able to free him from the treeline first and then from the rest of the fishing net,” Mr Cameron said.
“It was pretty stroppy, snarling at us to start with, but we held it tight to immobilise it and lifted it up so it couldn’t get any traction with its flippers on the sand.”
Once Neal’s final knife stroke cut the seal free, instinct immediately kicked in.
“He slapped his way back to the ocean, not once did it turn around and say thanks,” Mr Williams said.
“We estimated the seal might have been there for well over a week, with the recent large swells we’ve had.”
“It looked like an Australian fur seal, which is commonly found along the NSW coastline.”
Seal story goes viral
THE web video story of the baby seal tangled in a net has featured in Sea Shepherd’s Marine Debris Campaign Australia.
The video, shot on Manyana Beach by Adam Williams of his mate Neal Cameron cutting the stranded seal free after it was trapped for several days, got a massive response online.
More than 666,000 people have viewed the video on the Milton Ulladulla Times Facebook page, it has reached 1.8 million people’s news feeds and drawn almost 300 comments.
All ended well for the seal, after it apparently washed up in recent heavy storms and the net that had ensnared it in the ocean then caught around a shrub in the Manyana dunes.
Stroppy to start with, the moment the final stroke of Mr Cameron’s fishing knife freed it, it flapped straight to the waterline within 30 seconds and was gone.
Liza Dicks, Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign coordinator said the survival from the net was great news.
“But thousands of ocean creatures around the planet are not so lucky.
They become helpless and often die,” Ms Dicks said.
“Marine debris like discarded fishing nets, line, and tackle cause a slow, long, lonely and painful death to so many marine wildlife species.”
Ms Dicks told the Milton Ulladulla Times their current campaign started in February, included Plastic Free July, and so far had conducted more than 52 clean ups around Australia, and removed more than 170,000 pieces of debris.
Sea Shepherd’s website says debris can cause injury or death through drowning, injury through entanglement, internal injuries, and starvation following ingestion.
The website also warns that consumers of seafood digest toxins absorbed in man-made debris plastic or fibrous material now present in large percentages of fish.
“We try to educate as much as we can about this devastating threat to our oceans, which is increasing daily,” Ms Dicks said.
“We must keep our oceans safe for the wildlife that live in them.
The change starts with us.”
You can get involved in a clean up via Sea Shepherd’s Facebook and website.
Visit www.facebook.com/SSAUBeachCleanUps and www.seashepherd.org.au/marinedebris.
Both sites cover Sea Shepherd’s direct action conservation efforts, up to date figures of marine debris they remove and facts and figures on its impact.