Harp seal pays visit to Miramichi area

It's not exactly tourist season, but a unique visitor stopped by the Whitney area last week.

A seal spent the day on the ice Thursday after he made his way up the Miramichi River.

Joe Nastasiuk lives near where the seal was resting and said his neighbour told him about it when he got home from work that afternoon.

"It's not very often you see them up this far."

Nastasiuk said when he went again around 8:30 p.m. the seal was asleep on the ice.

"The next morning it was gone."

Although he didn't get close enough to see exactly how big the seal was, Nastasiuk said it was over six feet long. "It was a big one."

When Nastasiuk took his seven-yearold daughter Anika out to see the seal she was quiet so she wouldn't scare it away, he said. "She didn't really believe me at first."

Anika asked questions about the seal and took pictures to school where her teacher showed them to the class the next day. Joe said the seal didn't make any noise and he coughed to get it to lift its head for the pictures.

"It was very quiet."

It didn't move much and just lifted its head to make sure it wasn't in danger, he said.

"He didn't seem bothered by the pictures."

Joe said there was some ice build up on the river at the time and the seal looked like it was resting. "He was sitting on that ice."

Seals are animals people usually associate with the ocean, not the river, he said. "It's a pretty amazing thing to see."

Krista Petersen, a communications spokesperson with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said the department's biologists thought it was a harp seal, which are pretty common to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"They're one of the main species involved in the seal hunt."

Although they are not always in rivers, it's not unusual to see them there, Petersen said. "They're following food."

Petersen said since the seal was gone, it's likely it made its way back down the river to the gulf.

"The seal was following its nose."

This is the time of year when female seals give birth to their pups on the ice flows in the Northumberland Strait.

During years when there is little ice, seals will sometimes go ashore to give birth.

The department would like to remind the public seals are wild animals, which could become aggressive if they feel threatened, and it is an offence under the Marine Mammals Regulations to disturb them.