Police rescue a seal from the middle of a snowy Jersey Shore road
The Grey seal left the beach, wandered up the beach path and crossed three lanes of traffic, where it was spotted by a landscaper-turned-snow-plower.
Why did the little seal pup leave the ocean, wander up the beach path, go one block up Middlesex Avenue, then cross three lanes of Long Beach Boulevard in Harvey Cedars?
Who knows?
Maybe it was just the long slick surface of post-storm snow and ice that urged the seal to keep going until a sunny spot in this beach town’s southbound slow lane invited her to stretch out.
Luckily for the Grey seal pup, a landscaper on his way to plowing snow did not mistake her for a chunk of snow, and pulled over to block the roadway and help, Harvey Cedars Police Chief Robert Burnaford said later Tuesday.
“At approximately 7 o’clock an innocent bystander was driving by and saw the seal laying in the Boulevard,” Burnaford said by telephone.
“They called us, and the officers confirmed the seal was kind of just relaxing in the slow lane of Long Beach Boulevard,” the chief said. “Literally it crossed over three lanes of traffic to where it was finally hanging out.”
A member of Public Works first wrapped the seal in his jacket and moved her to Middlesex Avenue, out of traffic, Burnaford said. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center responded and carried her to their truck, and then to their hospital in Brigantine.
The Stranding Center put it this way on Instagram: “POV: When your nap shuts down a whole street.”
The center said in social media statements that the pup had no injuries but was in “thin overall body condition.”
“She is currently resting comfortably in Pen 2 of the Pool House,” the center wrote.
Seal beachings are not uncommon at the Jersey Shore, but the animals rarely end up off the beach. Burnaford said that once a seal ended up in the driveway of an ocean front home.
“They beach themselves to sun themselves,“ Burnaford said. ”Maybe she was sick and tired of the weather, trying to find another place."
Official totals put towns on Long Beach Island at around 18 inches of snow.
“It was icy and maybe [the seal] was able to slip and slide easier,” the chief said.
The Marine Mammal Center added: “Another big reason to use caution when driving through a shore town after a snowstorm.”