Baby Seal Relaxes with Rescuers

Naude, Antoine and Denzil from Ocean Conservation Namibia were out on patrol at Pelican Point, when they saw a young Cape Fur Seal pup with a big ball of thick fishing line on his back. After a quick discussion, it was decided that Naude would go for this pup by hand, while Denzil and Antoine would look for other potentially entangled animals in the rest of the group of a few thousand seals. Naude ran in and grabbed the line trailing the pup - the line was low on his body so there was no chance of hurting the animal. The pup was very aggressive and kept snapping at the rescuer. Naude was bitten quite badly by a seal just over a week ago, and this was his first rescue since then, so he was a bit apprehensive to say the least! Denzil came with the net to restrain the animal and Naude managed to get a good grip on him. As soon as he started cutting the lines the pup totally relaxed, and amazingly, once cut free, did not run away. 99% of the time the seal pups run straight for the water after bei