boating_rob
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http://www.lohud.com/article/20103010353
quote:
HAVERSTRAW - When John Taggart looked out his second-floor window Sunday morning he saw something unusual: a harp seal lazing on the frozen inlet at Bowline Point Town Park.
"I knew this town had bald eagles, but I had never heard about a seal," Taggart , 43, said, shaking his head. "It's a first."
P.J. McNamee, 17, an employee at the park, said a seal was reported about 9:45 a.m. Haverstraw police were called to the scene shortly afterward and contacted state wildlife authorities. Throughout the morning and early afternoon about 75 people gathered on each side of the inlet to take photographs of the marine mammal, which is native to Arctic waters and is named for its distinctive black-spotted silver fur.
"Apparently it's shedding," McNamee said, adding that it was the first time a seal had been sighted at the park since he had started working there three years ago.
If not exactly basking in the sun, the seal appeared to be resting with a fish in its mouth. Occasionally it thrust its nose in the air and barked.
"It's a funny choice for a place to beach, frankly," Kim Durham, a biologist at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation said. "It's not really where the seal really should be."
The animal, of indeterminate sex, was estimated at 5 feet long and 250 pounds.
Durham said it was unclear why it had strayed so far from its native waters.
Harp seals had been spotted off Long Island and New Jersey this year but none had been reported in the Hudson River.
Durham said it was possible the animal was healthy and was merely moulting. It might be sick, suffering from malnourishment , or had been thrown off course by last week's snowstorm.
Durham cautioned onlookers not to approach the seal and said marine biologists would keep tabs on the animal until it left the inlet.