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New Zealand

The Experience: A Baby Seal Invades Our Home | Life and Style

W.Ten years ago, I moved to Mount Maunganui, a small seaside community in New Zealand’s beautiful Bay of Plenty, for my husband Phil, a marine biologist. I’ve seen seals around Pilot Bay near here. Occasionally they can be seen sunbathing or playing on the rocks, but mostly within their own territory.

It was a dark winter morning in August this year when the seals arrived. At 5:50 am she left the house to go to fitness training. I got out to my car parked in the driveway and heard a growl.

I jumped in the car to avoid pinching my ankle and moved slowly, but I felt the car rub against something. When she went outside to look, she couldn’t see anything and thought she must have moved. When I returned to my seat, I saw a baby seal in the headlights.

I thought, “Oh my God,” but I didn’t panic. The ocean is just down the driveway and we thought we’d be back. I went to training and made everyone laugh by saying, “Sorry I’m late, there was a sticker under the car.”

I never thought about it again until I got home. As I was walking through the garage, I noticed that the bucket had been moved. I thought it might be a seal, but dismissed it as I didn’t think it would be possible to get through the catflap which was the only way to enter the garage. But i was wrong. When I opened the door to my house, I brushed something and it made a pattering sound, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, that’s the seal.

Seal under the stairs.
Seal under the stairs.

It was so cute with its big tearful eyes like a lovely stuffed animal. I wanted to keep it, but the smell of seals is strong. I was aware that they were wild animals, so they were cute, but I didn’t want to know how sharp their teeth were.

it saw me I retreated and went to check on the children. they were sleeping I called Phil on the way home from a business trip. He couldn’t believe what was going on.

The seal stayed home for another half hour or so. I was sitting near the bottom of the stairs and I could hear it growling and swelling. I put my head in the spare room to make sure it got there and up on the couch. I was about to get on my standing desk. I said, “No!” It turned and looked at me, calm and very civilized.

I called the rangers from the Department of Conservation. And someone came to get the seal. It’s sad to see a wild creature wrapped in a net, but I was relieved when a ranger told me to release it in a sheltered area away from dogs.

I hadn’t seen Coco for a while, so I was worried. Then an hour later she appeared on the fence in her neighborhood giving her hoot and presumably told all this big story about seals. She refused to go downstairs for several days.

I never thought of sharing this story, but the next day, I knew I needed to help the department raise awareness of seals in the area. I posted the photo on social media and it snowballed. It was a lot of fun to see people from all over the world.

We did 15-20 interviews in a week and got a lot of emails from journalists from Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Malaysia and Thailand. With some pretty grim news in between, it was a nice touch to have a light news story.

It was a very strange experience to have all the attention for a week, but we’ve been commemorating it. It was Phil’s birthday in September, so as a natural gift, I gave him a T-shirt with the logo “A seal came to my house and I only got this T-shirt.”

There are still some people in our community who don’t know about seals. His son’s hockey teacher came to the babysitter and said, “Oh, you know where the seals were.” She just looked confused. she is very funny Stories can reach all over the world, but someone down the road has no idea what we’re talking about.

As Eva Corlette said

Do you have any experience to share? e-mail experience@theguardian.com

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/16/experience-a-baby-seal-broke-into-our-home The Experience: A Baby Seal Invades Our Home | Life and Style

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