Adelaide, December 10: Veterinarians treated a fur seal pup for dehydration Thursday after it was found trying to cross an Australian highway a few kilometres from a beach and nearly 300km from the nearest seal colony.
Aaron Machado of Project Dolphin Safe said he was contacted on Wednesday night by the parks service after a trucker spotted the 6kg pup on a highway near the seaside town of Port Germein in the state of South Australia.
“Her biggest problem at this point is dehydration and we’re scrambling like mad to help her,” Machado said. “She has improved. She doesn’t like to stay in one place and she’s grumpy.”
Machado said the pup was likely between 3 and 6 months old, but he wasn’t sure yet which species of fur seal she belonged to because of her age and small size.
The nearest fur seal colony is at Coffin Bay, nearly 300km away across the Spencer Gulf.
It was not known how the pup travelled so far from a seal colony.
If she responds well to treatment, Machado said he hoped she could be released back to the wild in three or four months.
—Agencies