Entangled seal freed

Plastic packing strap around his neck

At 8 am the morning of May 8, with the sun lighting the sky but not yet over the hills, a team of marine mammal rescuers climbed down on to the beach among the Piedras Blancas elephant seals. Within the hour, the seal, a plastic packing strap tight around its neck, was freed from his entanglement.

He turned to argue with a neighboring seal, and they sparred.

“Our entangled seal – we called him Rabble -- ended up squabbling with another male as we left the beach,” said team leader Aliah Meza, operations manager of The Marine Mammal Center’s San Luis Obispo Operations site in Morro Bay.

Docents see him on the beach

The entangled seal was first reported by Friends of the Elephant Seal docents on April 27. The seal was on the north beach at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal viewpoint, crowded among other seals.

“These situations are life-threatening to the animals,” she said. “If we did not intervene, that animal would not survive.”

As soon as she had reports and photos of the seal, Meza began planning how to rescue it. Photos help her determine what the seal is entangled in, the size and condition of the seal, what’s on the surrounding beach.

"We have experience from the last few years of going on to beaches with active rookeries,” she said. “We felt pretty prepared.”

The plastic packing strap is a common entanglement. Meza has removed packing straps from other seals, using a clipper. This one looked especially tight, though. Difficult to get a clipper between the skin and the strap.

“We have a lot of natural history with the Piedras Blancas rookery,” she said. “We knew he was going to be on the beach for a while, molting.”

Planning to get among the seals

The beach is crowded with seals in May, more than even during the breeding season. Around 5,000 adult females are in the rookery, which extends from north of the Piedras Blancas light station to about a mile south of the viewpoint. Thousands of juvenile seals, both males and females are also on the beach at this time.

They are there to molt, the skin peeling off in pieces. The seals need to be out of the water, on the sand, to allow their new skin to emerge. Visitors can handle pieces of skin from FES docents, identified by their blue jackets, at the viewpoint.

Meza decided that it would be best to sedate him, to give the team the best chance of success. Associate Veterinarian Heather Harris would inject the seal with sedative to immobilize him.

Dr. Harris and Meza estimated the seal’s weight from the photos, to determine the proper drug dosage: enough to settle him, without drugging him too long. Every rescue is a balancing act between too little and too much.

This seal weighed about 190-200 kg, 420-440 lbs. Sedating him also meant they would have to bring a team to prevent him from escaping to the ocean before the drug took effect.

With the seal sedated, they could cut the strap off and then examine the wound, to see how deep it was, and whether it needed further treatment.

Finding one seal among thousands

As she made those plans in April, the seal slipped away. Docents searched for him, but no sign. Until Friday, May 2. There he was, this time on the south beach. He was still there on Wednesday, May 7, shifting around, moving toward the cool edge of the water on a warm day.

Meza got the plan ready and assembled the team of staff and volunteers to go on Thursday morning.

She had cleared it with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has jurisdiction over the beach, within the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. She notified State Parks, which handles the viewpoint and the docent program.

“If we’re going to go down on the beach and disturb other seals to help one with a life-threatening injury, we want to have the highest chance of success,” she said.

The team goes into action

The team left the Morro Bay site at 6 am, and arrived at the viewpoint by 7. By 8, they were climbing down onto the beach.

“Being on the south beach worked in our favor,” she said. “There’s more beach there, to give us more space between us and the animals on the beach.”

Early morning means fewer visitors and less potential for disruption. The team included safety officers and communications people to take photos and video, write notes, and speak to the public.

“We have someone to communicate what’s going on,” she said. “It’s a public viewing area.”

Photo by Laurie Miller © The Marine Mammal Center, NOAA permit #24359

Four team members with boards stood between the seal and the water, to prevent the seal from escaping. Others with boards pressed the seals around the target seal to move away. They complained, but weren’t aggressive. During this part of their year, they have no reason to be.

“There was no risk to mom-pup pairs, and no dominant adult males on beach,” she said. “Generally, they didn’t mind us.”

Sedating the seal

Photo by Laurie Miller © The Marine Mammal Center, NOAA permit #24359

With the target seal isolated from the others, Meza and Dr. Harris had space to inject the seal. They used a pole syringe, to keep some distance from the seal, who had raised up and was waving his head around and vocalizing.

The syringe worked on the first try. He was soon overcome by the drug, and they could go to work.

First, they cut the strap off. It wasn’t as tight as it was two weeks before. The seal had lost some weight. Seals don’t eat while they are on the beach. Molting seals lose about a quarter of their weight during the four weeks or so they are on the beach molting.

In Rabble’s case, that 2 cm, less than an inch, made removing the packing strap easier.

The strap hadn’t yet cut into any vital organs. The cut was superficial, through the skin and into blubber, but will heal on its own. Rabble will have the scar forever, though.

They took blood and rectal samples, and gave him two orange flipper tags. Pups born on Piedras Blancas get white flipper tags, but seals that are rehabbed get orange tags.

Tracking Rabble

Docents will continue to watch for Rabble and his two orange tags. He was at the beginning of his molt, so will be on the beach for several more weeks. Those tags will identify him in the future as well.

“It will be great to track this animal,” Meza said. “Unfortunately, these packing straps are common entanglements. While I was on the beach, I saw another seal with a scar. We might see that one again and be able to identify it.”

After The Tribune published the story of Necklace, who was also entangled in a packing strap, in May 2024, a Cambria restaurant owner approached me and said that he gets a lot of supplies with packing straps, and that he would never again throw one away without cutting it.

“The impact of plastic and ocean trash on these animals is severe,” Meza said. “That’s why NOAA gives us permission for these special responses. We can all make an impact. The more we know, the more we can do to help.”