While people starve on the streets of Vancouver and we have a hard time getting health care.
Those self rightous aquarium staff save seals. The seal dies for god knows why, and somehow the story flips to sportfishing. The story basically says that human interaction ie: sportfishing, is wiping out seals left right and center. Pity the seal that takes your salmon and ends up taking your tackle. The one picture in the paper had a seal with a flasher hanging out of it's mouth. Time to take up kickboxing.
Seal rescued from beach in Kitsilano dies suddenly
Catherine Rolfsen
Vancouver Sun
Monday, March 24, 2008
B.C. I Marine mammal experts are baffled by the sudden death of an elephant seal rescued from Kitsilano Beach on Tuesday.
Everything was looking up for the year-old male seal after it was moved off the busy beach by the Vancouver Aquarium's marine mammal rescue team.
"His clinical signs were consistent with an elephant seal going through his yearly moult," said Marty Haulena, the aquarium's staff veterinarian. "In fact, he was vocalizing quite a bit and becoming very active."
Staff were set to release the animal, which weighed 113 kilograms and measured about 1.37 metres, on Vancouver Island Saturday so it could continue the normal four-week moulting process in peace.
But when they checked on it Friday, they found it had died overnight.
An initial post-mortem examination did not determine the cause of death, Haulena said, but added that further testing could reveal more information.
It's rare but not unheard-of for an elephant seal to come this far north. Haulena said that in California, the animals often pull up at crowded beaches.
"I am at a loss," he said, speculating the cause of death could be a sudden infection or a brain lesion.
However, it's painfully obvious what killed another marine mammal in Ucluelet last week.
Over the past few weeks, a sea lion had been spotted on a Ucluelet dock with a fishing lure hanging out of its mouth.
Haulena said that when his team went to release the elephant seal, they were also hoping to capture the injured sea lion, which was being monitored by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
But the animal, thought to be an adult male, died before help could arrive. Haulena said it could have perished from hunger, infection or the perforation of an organ.
Haulena said the death was particularly sad because it was clearly due to human interaction. "It's more common than we realize," he said of marine mammals swallowing fishing hooks. "It's a nasty way to go."
crolfsen@png.canwest.com© The Vancouver Sun 2008
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