A seal that would normally live in waters around the Aleutian Islands and California has shown up thousands of miles away on a beach in Hawaii, officials said Wednesday.
People found the northern fur seal resting on the sand near Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. It was emaciated, underweight and weak.
It’s the first time on record that a wild fur seal has come to Hawaii, said David Schofield, a marine mammal response coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hawaii’s only native seal is the endangered Hawaiian monk seal. Elephant seals have made their way over from California in the past, but only very rarely, Schofield said.
“We were all pretty surprised,” he said.
It’s not clear how the female visitor, a young adult, got so far south.
The Associated Press
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