Lost baby seal seen wandering along Ocean City street rescued, being nursed back to health

A lost grey seal pup found scooting along a street in Ocean City is in the care of wildlife experts.

Officials with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine wrote on social media that they started getting calls from people who spotted the animal just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday in the area around 42nd Street and West Avenue, at the south end of Ocean City where the shore town narrows to about two blocks wide and the residential streets are sandwiched between marshes on the west and the beach to the east.

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The seal is believed to have passed through a backyard and then moved to the sidewalk before making its way up the middle of 42nd Street, the wildlife rescue center said. At one point, onlookers reported the seal was almost struck by a car, and an Ocean City police officer eventually stopped traffic allowing the pup to cross through multiple intersections.

The animal traveled 1/4 mile in a 20 minute span on the roads. It was headed toward the ocean and within 100 yards of a beach ramp when it was captured by the MMSC crew, officials said.

The baby seal is a male between 4-6 weeks old, and at just less than 29 pounds was underweight, the MMSC said. The center is caring for the animal in its ICU and said that as of Thursday morning, he  was "resting comfortably."

Seal pups are born on islands and sometimes lose their sense of direction, the center said. When that happens, they tend to wander until they can find a body of water. Their likelihood of getting lost increases when there are coastal flood advisories, because navigation becomes more difficult.

"Many people have asked about this unusual behavior," the center wrote on Facebook. "We have had MANY cases over the past 46 years of seals, especially Grey seals, taking a wrong turn and wandering up beach access paths to backyards, parking lots, and roadways."

In a comment to its post, the stranding center shared a video of the seal squirming around in the roadway. 

"Seals are covered in hair so they have some protection, but could get wear spots if the exposure to a harsh surface is long enough to start sloughing the hair off," the MMSC said. "Fortunately this little guy came out of the experience unscathed."

The seal in Ocean City is the second to be rescued by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in South Jersey during the last month. In January, a female pup was recovered from a sidewalk in Point Pleasant.