National Parks expert praises farmers for rescuing lost seal pup

A marine mammal expert at the National Parks and Wildlife Service praised the actions of two South Australian farmers who rescued a lost seal pup from a wheat crop and returned it to the sea.

The farmers have become a media sensation, but they have attracted some negative comments on social media about their handling of the situation.

National Parks marine coordinator Dirk Holman said that the long-nosed fur seal, which was found about three kilometres from the ocean on the Eyre Peninsula, would most likely have perished had it not been discovered.

The chances of survival are pretty low, Holman said.

Holman said if members of the public found a marine mammal in distress they should contact National Parks, but in this case the farmers acted appropriately.

If there was a group of people that you wanted handling that animal, it would have been a farmer, he said.

They did the right thing by picking it up and taking it back and putting it in the water and giving it its best chance of survival. Holman said the pup was about six months old and would have been weaned.

He said that the condition didn't look great, but these animals are all very resilient.

You see them with shark bites at times, and you think that because it looks so severe, they couldn't possibly survive - but then you see that that animal has disappeared and gone out to sea a couple of days later.

The pup was most likely from a colony south of Port Lincoln, about 300 km away.

The animals are particularly mobile, according to Holman.

They have a large range and they can spend a lot of time at sea and they utilise the gulfs as foraging areas.

3 km inland is a bit unusual, but an animal by itself is not unusual. He said that the seal might have got disoriented.

It is quite high, so it might not be able to find its way back to the beach, according to Holman.