This morning I had the pleasure of shipping off yesterday's yearlings. I usually don't enjoy the leftovers (I call them sloppy seconds) as it's all of the scrubbing with none of the glory, but today the seals were too adorable to resent. Hut here was taken into custody Saturday afternoon for being skinny and hanging around the Harbor Hut restaurant in my neighborhood. It's not such a bad place for a sea lion, really, but they tend to attract a crowd. And it isn't the easiest place to rescue (all rocks and they see you coming) so if Hut got himself caught that's definitely his own fault.
Cabo San Luis, on the other hand, at least had this lovely hole in his neck to justify his captivity. He came in from Avila Beach and I'm pretty sure he's the one we got a call on (but couldn't find) late Friday night. The hole doesn't look so bad - it's most likely just a popped abscess - but I can't imagine it feels all that great. He was noticeably grumpier and more lethargic than his neighbor. Still, he was well behaved when it came time to leave. He boxed himself up quite politely.We thought perhaps we'd gotten off easy - an uneventful transport, a couple of dirty pens, an excuse to go out to breakfast - but alas, the skeleton Sunday crew had some glory coming its way after all. Our first rescue was in our least favorite location (a place called the Sandspit) and, in fact, it wasn't even really on the Sandspit. Our seal was between the Sandspit and our second least favorite location, the aptly named Hazard Canyon. Though it only took 20 minutes to hike out to her, it took more than an hour to carry her out. And of course she couldn't be a dainty little yearling. Feo was 59 kg of full grown adult female.
I considered sparing you any photographic evidence of Feo, but then I found this deceptively tame shot. It fails to adequately capture the depth and the horror of her broken maxilla. You can tell her features are askew, sure, but you can't really tell why. And if you fooled yourself just a little, you could almost come to believe that the red tint on her fur was a trick of the setting sun. You wouldn't have to know that she was still all bloody from her struggle against my net. In particular, what you can't see here is that there's a perfect little (presumably man made) hole in the center of all that mess.Much as I love to pass off the throwing of the net, I had to catch this girl on my own. I was first on the scene and my cohorts were not willing to bring down the carrier unless I had something to put in it. Perhaps even more impressive than the fact that I caught and carried her, is the fact that I was able to weigh her all by myself. It was anything but graceful, getting all 79 kg of seal and carrier on and off the scale twice (the first time I got an error message), but I was determined to succeed. I had sent the rest of the crew on another rescue and it just didn't seem fair to leave Feo boxed up any longer than necessary. Unfortunately, I still had to wait for them to return before I could administer her sorely needed pain meds. At least I've got a chance to make it up to her, as my incredibly sweet hubby has agreed to go back out there with me to give her a midnight dose. There's likely precious little that vet staff can do for her tomorrow. The least we can do is keep her free of pain.
Though I could've enjoyed having help off loading Feo, I was glad the rest of the crew went and rescued Surely here. It was nice to have a patient who wasn't in any way disturbing. In fact, Surely was rather acrobatic and entertaining. Interestingly, Surely had been loitering in the same neighborhood as Hut and was equally unacceptably approachable. I like that this shot shows his ribs and hip bones, because at 18 kg, we probly should have considered relocating him. But as I've said before, I firmly believe if you can catch them, you can keep them.Anyway, I guess I'm off to dope up Feo one last time. No seals for me tomorrow. Instead I'm off to Santa Cruz for a visit with the nieces...
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