A baby harbour seal was rescued from a life-threatening gillnet that was wrapped around her neck in West Vancouver.
The seal was spotted by a passerby, prompting a call to the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society, which gave her the fitting name “Annette.”
According to Lindsaye Akhurst, the society’s senior manager, the net had likely been around her neck for three or four weeks.
“In that time, it did dig quite deeply down,” Akhurst said.
“We were concerned that maybe it dug deep enough to affect her anatomy… but thankfully that’s not the case.”
Annette is around seven months old but severely underweight for her age, suggesting she was unable to eat during the weeks she was entangled in the gillnet.
“For the first few days, we had to slightly encourage her to get some nutrition into her body,” Akhurst said.
“But now she’s in a pool and eating fish all by herself.”
The rescue society says Annette’s story is nowhere near a one-off; the group responds to hundreds of marine mammal emergencies each year.
“It’s not always fishing gear,” Akhurst said.
“Sometimes it’s packing bands or anything that these animals can get on them in some sort of way. Prevention is always the key in these cases, and we are here if it’s not the case.”
As for when Annette can safely return to the Pacific, Akhurst says she’ll continue to receive treatment for a few weeks while her wound heals and she puts on enough weight to survive on her own.
“She was very lucky to have been hauled out when she did,” said Akhurst.
“It was very lucky the members of the public called us, and we were able to get there really quickly. Not all of them get that chance.”
