Seal of approval for rare visitor to Cape Town

A VERY rare visitor to Cape Town – an Antarctic fur seal – is being given VIP treatment at the SPCA’s “short-term wildlife care facility” in Grassy Park before it will hopefully be sent home, much further south.

But despite the seal’s name, that won’t actually be all the way to the frozen continent at the “end of the world”.

This is because the species actually breeds on sub-Antarctic islands – notably South Georgia, where by far the biggest population occurs, but also on other islands like South Africa’s Marion Island where it co-exists with its “cousin”, the Subantarctic fur seal that is a separate species and also an occasional visitor to our shores.

The SPCA’s wildlife unit was alerted on Monday evening that a “white” seal had been spotted at Kommetjie and was apparently in danger, said was too large for him to move immediately on his own,” she said.

“Brett made the call that it was stable and that it would be better… to embark on the rescue procedure in the morning.”

Apart from the logistical problems of capturing a large seal, seals are very susceptible to stress-related interaction with humans, Greeff-Villet added.

Glasby and his team returned early the next day and decided to take the seal to the wildlife care facility for assessment, with the hope of being able to release it later.

“These seals are very rare in this part of the world and this is considered an exceptional find,” Greeff-Villet said.

In 2002, an Antarctic fur seal pup weighing just 5.4kg washed up on Strandfontein beach and was believed to have been the first of its kind to have been found in Cape Town.