> Heheh. Coastguard gets all sorts of weird callouts but this was a good one. A member of the public spotted a distressed seal which had climbed out onto a moored boat near the Navy base in Devonport. In the absence of a distressed-seal hotline, one of the Coastguard vessels was sent to see what could be done about it.
>
> Not a lot, really. It was suggested that, since it was sick, perhaps we should call DOC. (The Department of Conservation. Heheh.) The Navy disclaimed all responsibility for sick seals, so did a local aquarium, and the animal was eventually left to its own devices.
>
> It *did* make it a little hard for the duty officer to fill out the "name and address of assisted person" on the paperwork, though.
>
> Brunnen-"still wondering how you can *tell* if a seal is distressed"G

Heh. We had a similar situation next to my house a few years ago. (Well, around here we consider a mile or two to be "next to" a place.) Around March, a seal was discovered stranded on ice floe at low tide by a bridge. Oddly enough, our area isn't known for its seal population, and one would have to travel about 200 km up the Bay of Fundy, from the south, to reach us. Anyway, this seal was judged to be in distress, as well. We, the locals, attempted some kind of rescue attempt... how exactly we would attempt to do this, I don't know, but apparently we wanted our hands on the animal. (If you can't tell, I was young at the time and was more interested in generalities than specifics.) The creature didn't seem to take our gestures kindly, though, because it resisted violently enough to drive the fear of seal into all around, and ward off any forcible salvation. In the end, it seemed the seal *had* been in distress, because it died.

Burger"My stories have no point"King