Sealed Fate – Part 2

This is a multi-part story. Read part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | epilog

Day 2. I am already stressed for the pup, but it notches up more when I awake from a restless sleep and hear Sean up on deck say, “Hey there little guy.” The pup is still here, at our back swim step again. Yesterday, the lady at the Marine Mammal Stranding Network said to not acknowledge or talk baby talk to the pup, but that’s exactly what Sean is doing. He denies doing it.

The pup spends the morning moving from clinging to the mooring buoy, to nursing down the side of our boat, to trying to get up on the swim step. I notice that when the currents are strongest, he can’t keep up and floats past our boat, pokes his head out of the water, and then grunts as he works hard to get back to the boat or mooring ball.

A catamaran comes in and grabs the mooring ball next to us. The pup swims over to the boat and starts the same process (mooring ball, nurse along the side of it, then try to get up on their swim step). Sean is upset because the pup abandoned us for a nicer boat. The people are having none of it and move to a further way mooring ball. The pup tries to follow them at first but moves back to our boat.

We see three adult seals swim by, but none acknowledge the pup. To be sure to not scare the mom if she were to return, we keep the dinghy motor off and I row Sean to shore so he can go for a hike while I keep watch over the pup.

1 pm. I call the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network again and am told that our location is not covered by their organization. They have referred my case to Skagit Mammal Rescue. Yes! An organization that has “Rescue” in the name!! A nice man named Garry answers the phone when I call the number given to me. He asks me to text more videos and photos. He says it can sometimes take a mother seal up to 48 hours to get back to her pup to nurse it. They have to be sure the mother is not coming back so they don’t “rescue” a pup that doesn’t need to be rescued and cause it harm. I’m worried that this pup won’t last that long. It’s really struggling.

Another seal shows up a few yards from our boat and the pup swims to it. I am hopeful, but the pup just touches the other seal and then immediately swims back to the mooring ball and our boat. I don’t think it was his mother. I send a video of the encounter to Garry and he forwards it to the vet. Her take on the video showing interaction with an adult seal leads her to think that it may be the mom and gives them hesitation to want to intervene. The pup may be using your boat as a pacifier in between visits from mom. Garry says he’ll let me know what the brain trust thinks as he runs it by others on his team.

4 pm. The pup is gone. I was below deck so didn’t see what happened. I hope his mom came and got him. But we fear he just gave up and sunk below the water. I let Garry know.

4:30 pm. The pup is back, he just went to another mooring ball. I inform Garry. He reaches out to other stranding network partners and they think it’s good that the pup moved to another place even though he came back. The pup is still in seeking mode.

7:20 pm. I get a good look at the pup’s eyes (they are closed most of the time) and the right one looks cloudy and smaller than the left. Garry contacts his vet to see if she thinks the pup is in peril. That’s the only way he can arrange a rescue; the vet must state that it needs to be rescued. He calls around to get things in place in case the pup is still around the next day and if the vet approves a rescue. He gets our location and checks his marine traffic app to see any GPS transponders in our moorage. I flip on our transponder so he can see our boat.

The pup can barely stay above water at this point. He’ll be lucky to last through the night. Garry asks if we have a piece of plywood that we can tie to the back of our boat so the pup can try to get up on it. We don’t keep sheets of plywood stocked on our boat, but I tie a float cushion to the swim step to see if he can use it to keep his head above water. I watch the pup check out the cushion and he tries to climb up on it without success.

After many attempts, his head and flippers randomly slide through one of the straps and he settles a bit to get some rest. This may help him make it through the night.

I send lots more videos and photos so they can see the struggling pup. Garry contacts San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranded Network, the team from the original organization I contacted, to see if they would be willing to do a possible rescue tomorrow if it’s approved. They are much closer to our anchorage and have a boat that can make the long trip from Friday Harbor. But will the pup still be here?