Hey, there! Log in / Register

Esplanade dock gets fat, sassy visitor

Seal on a dock in the Charles River

Dr. Ed spotted a seal just lounging on a dock in the Charles River this morning, probably the same one DCR reported by the locks yesterday morning:

Seal in the Charles River

The Globe reports New England Aquarium experts think the seal is perfectly fine and just enjoying gorging on some plump Charles River fish snacks.

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

There are a bunch of Mr. and Mrs. Fussies who think that seals just hanging out are in some kind of distress. Leave them alone, don't call the Aquarium, don't call 311 or 911. They are just seals being seals.

I hear from my sister in law down the beach that a week doesn't go by that someone thinks a seal is in distress because it has it tush up on the sand / pier / marsh.

Right now seals are gorging themselves on herring and other fish as they go back up river to spawn. It is an aqua themed Old Country Buffet for them and this one looks like it had just eaten like a stoned pelican.

Seals are protected by the Marine Mammal Act and it is a crime (Federal) to touch / harass them, although they are starting to turn into water based turkeys around here. The problem is that when you have turkeys in your neighborhood nothing happens except people from Brookline hide or people on the Pike do not know how to handle one in the median. When you have seals in your local swimming area, you get sharks, and you don't want to be the slow seal.

Give credit to the clean up of the waters around here. We have seals in the Charles and we have had humpbacks off of Castle Island. Nice job MWRA.

up
Voting closed 0

More like an Old Colony Buffet amirite!!!!

up
Voting closed 0

I'm kind of curious how it got past the dam. Did it go through the locks or did it crawl around it by land? I suppose it can probably find its way back out either way.

up
Voting closed 0

... and now it is going through the lox. It probably followed the herring heading up the current when they opened them up.

up
Voting closed 0

This appears to be the second seal in the river in the past week or so ... last one swam through the locks, was spotted by the staff at the Museum of Science, and eventually guided back through the locks. This could be the same one back for more, though. (hey, it knows a good thing when it sees it.)

It doesn't really hurt them to be in freshwater, at least for short periods, but it might need some help finding its way back to the harbor.

up
Voting closed 0

lane...

up
Voting closed 0

...how exactly DO you handle a turkey in the median strip? Don't you have to slow down to a crawl so you don't hit it if/when it marches into the road?

up
Voting closed 0

You are devaluing your car / repair bills / higher insurance rates / time and bills for chiropractor visits from when you get hit from behind because you braked suddenly in a 65 MPH zone over a bird.

Brake for people, moose, deer, dogs, seals (it happens) things that can do real damage to you and your car.

Turkeys? Meh. Would you slow down for rats, pigeons, or squirrels?

up
Voting closed 0

up
Voting closed 0

for proving why you don't take advice from idiots on the internet. A turkey can cause significant damage, especially when you're driving over 65 and it flies into your windshield / front end.

up
Voting closed 0

said another idiot on the internet

up
Voting closed 0

At least I'm smart enough to know there's a difference between hitting a 20-30 pound turkey and a pigeon or squirrel.

up
Voting closed 0

i would rather hit a 20 lb turkey than be rear ended by a 2500 lb car

which is what the other guy was saying

'bro'

up
Voting closed 0

We recommend unconditional surrender.

up
Voting closed 0

Somebody throw him a beach ball.

up
Voting closed 0

Heidi Klum left him.

up
Voting closed 0

Living the dream!

up
Voting closed 0

up
Voting closed 0

He just got the itis after eating too many herring.

up
Voting closed 0

Something really needs to be done about the seals they are getting out of control. And if you go anywhere around Chatham or the cape beaches and there are hundreds of thousands of them if not millions and the only Predator to them are great whites which have been inhabited our beaches more more frequent now. But seals can destroy an ecosystem of fish they eat thousands of pounds of fish yearly each.

up
Voting closed 0

You can keep an eye on Cape Cod sharks etc. with the OCearch shark tracker website or app (which I learned about on a Chatham seal watch cruise). Indeed, more seals = sharks. You can also apparently get a nasty bacterial infection if you pet a seal, so maybe don't give them too many hugs.

http://www.ocearch.org/

up
Voting closed 0