fun with fur seals

Meet Monahan, the more photogenic of two Northern Fur Seals that my Friday crew and I collected off the beaches. Apparently she's an adult female (all white whiskers - who knew?). She couldn't have stranded closer to our triage facility if she tried, which was very thoughtful of her as we had two other animals coming in at the same time (another fur seal from the north and a big sea lion from the south).

Since we had such a busy day (and because the folks in Sausalito were tied up with big sea lions all their own), little Spanokopita had to spend a second night with us. Not a problem for me, as I found him quite adorable. I was, however, disheartened to see him growing more lethargic despite his improved nutrition. After a number of tubings and subcutaneous fluids, he finally offered a urine sample. I suspect it will reveal an exposure to the neurotoxic Domoic Acid (from the harmful algae bloom Pseudo-nitzschia) as this is one of the most common reasons we get clusters of sea lions and fur seals (and because water trackers have confirmed a recent bloom). Despite my suspicions of their condition (further supported by Spanokopita's sporting the trademark brown slobber), none of my patients had full blown seizures.

And because I truly do love him more, here's a picture of Woodco, the fur seal I netted myself. I was especially thrilled that Woodco was the first seal rescued in my recently refurbished net. It didn't matter that he, too, was in his happy place and hardly put up a fight. My heart was still racing and my adrenaline flowing. I got to feel like a hero without having to do anything extraordinary.

By the way, notice the lovely purple stripe on his back? Not my finest moment. Though I am aware that fur seals depend on the quality of their fur for their warmth, and while I am aware that we take extreme precautions not to compromise their coat in any way, and though we could easily tell the two seals apart as they differed significantly in size, I held poor Woodco and Monahan down while my friend marked them with different colored grease markers. This is a common practice for elephant seals who share pens, so we did it out of routine more than anything else. Clearly we didn't really think through the whole fur thing... Anyway, it gave us another opportunity to learn and another reason to admire our seal boss as she very diplomatically educated us without making us feel stupid. Of course, we still felt stupid and scolded ourselves all day, but at least she didn't make us feel that way.

Anyway, I am actually off to see her in person soon. I will be following my recent patients up to Sausalito and working a couple of shifts there. I leave in, oh, less than 8 hours and having finally finished packing, I am off to bed. Too bad that means I have no time to tell you of today's rescue, Soup. I tried not to rescue Soup (having put him on watch Friday), but he just wouldn't go away. But at least you can enjoy his picture.