Beach Day: Seal Release!

My husband had returned from the West Coast on a red-eye flight and suggested we go to the beach for the afternoon. We’ve been going to Sandy Hook National Seashore for years. A sunny, mild day, the beach, post-Labor Day, was quite empty. A National Park Service truck drove around the sand, parked, then set up a row of orange traffic cones. People started to gather by the cones. We’d seen some dolphin fins out in the water but wondered what was going on. A seal release! Grabbing our phones, we staked out a spot.

The seal, about a year old, had beached in Ocean City, MD in May, stricken with lung worms. She was taken to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for medical attention where she was also named Luna. Now ready to return to the wild, the aquarium transported her to New Jersey to bring her further north, hopefully avoiding any effects of Hurricane Irma. Rangers told us she could travel as far north as Canada and may reach as big as 1,000 pounds.

What a treat!