Mus­ham­na – saving the seal – 06 August 2018

Mon
6 Aug
2018

The anchor was on the bot­tom in Mus­ham­na, we were about to finish a cosy evening and call it a day as a small seal was seen near the beach ent­an­gled in a pie­ce of fishing net, fight­ing for its life. All this pla­s­tic in the sea and on the shore or else­whe­re in the envi­ron­ment is so dis­gus­ting! What is so dif­fi­cult about put­ting old fishing gear or wha­te­ver it is in a con­tai­ner in the har­bour or whe­re­ver? Why do end­less quan­ti­ties of it con­stant­ly end up in the sea, caus­ing immense dama­ge to the envi­ron­ment and slow and pain­ful deaths to count­less ani­mals?

Mus­ham­na

In this case, at least, we could help. It was a small seal, pro­ba­b­ly a young Rin­ged seal, which I could easi­ly grab in the shal­low water and lift up on the beach, so Pål could cut the net with a sharp kni­fe. The net had alre­a­dy star­ted to cut into the skin around the neck, so the poor beast must have been clo­se to suf­fo­ca­ting and it was real­ly high time! Of cour­se it was under shock and it nee­ded some moments until it star­ted to calm down again and to breath free­ly, but then it swam away, making a very healt­hy and lively impres­si­on on us, so we are sure it is in good shape again! Pro­ba­b­ly it was just our ima­gi­na­ti­on, but when it actual­ly dived through under our boat, we had the impres­si­on it did so to say thank you and good­bye. A won­derful moment that made us real­ly hap­py! I don’t want to think of all the ani­mals which suf­fer a simi­lar fate wit­hout anyo­ne around who could help, but some­ti­mes you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and able to do th! e right thing. Plea­se, ever­y­bo­dy, be respon­si­ble with pla­s­tic!

Mus­ham­na

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