Antarctic Seal Found 70 Miles Inland

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 23

Antarctic Seal Found 70 Miles Inland

United States scientists in the Antarctic last week found a wayward crabeater seal pup 70 miles from the sea at more than 3000 ft above sea level. The scientists discovered the seal during a survey of the Byrd Land coast They spotted the tracks from a helicopter and followed them for 20 miles before finding the seal on a glacier. The seal fought tenaciously before allowing itself to be captured and taken to the base camp. It weighed 571 b, which was less than its weight at birth, and had lost most of its blubber.

The scientists fed the seal on fish which it ate after refusing to be fed by force. Two

days later they released the seal off Hut Point Peninsula, near McMurdo Station. Its chances of survival are considered not very good because of the loss of blubber which protects seals from the cold.

A crabeater seal normally weighs 60-701 b at birth and doubles its weight in six weeks. Dead seals have been found previously in the ice-free dry valleys of the Antarctic, but none had been found alive before so far inland. Scientists believe that the seal’s mother either died or abandoned it It then became lost and wandered away from its only source of food.