Harp Seal Stuck On Cliff Near Salem, MA, Rescued

The New England Aquarium Marine Animal Rescue Team and an alert seal-loving Beverly, MA, woman saved a harp seal who got stuck in the crevice of a  cliff Monday. The 50-pound, yearling female seal got stuck between rocks 20 feet above the water by the full moon high tide. Rescuers extricated the seal, who has gray mottled fur, from the rocks, checked her out and released her into Salem Sound.The seal was first seen on the cliff Sunday by neighbor Katie Duffy. Like many people, Duffy was worried seeing a seal out of water. She called rescuers who could thought the seal was doing fine. The seal population in the U.S. seems to be on the rise, leading to seals showing up in unusual places or high numbers. Just days ago the aquarium was checking out a seal who decided to visit downtown Boston.

The next day, however, the seal has gotten herself stuck in a tiny 2-foot deep trench. Duffey again called rescuers, who came out to find the seal  “in significant distress with labored breathing,” according to the Aquarium. “They were initially not optimistic about the seal’s prospects.” Aquarium staff Adam Kennedy and Ulrika Malone threw a blanket over her. She froze in fear and they were able to push her into a crate. When they finally got to examine her, they found she was fine. She just had some scratches.So they carried her crate down to a beach. At first she was still too scared to move,

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Visit Baby Harp Seals; Give Hunters a New Job and a New Attitude

More than 20 years ago, Ben Bressler first got the idea of taking tourists to see the whitecoats, the adorable white baby harp seals, which are famous for their brutal slaughter the on Canadian ice floes. Bressler, along with IFAW, figured if he could find a way to make more money off showing off seals than killing them, he could change their thinking.

“It’s a much bigger issue there than the actual revenue,” Bressler says. “The rest of Canada has nothing to do with hunting, but feels that Americans shouldn’t be sticking their nose into their business.”

So, he started bringing tourists. Decades later, both tourists and hunters still visit the baby seals. But Bressler’s tours have gradually eroded the defiant enthusiasm for the seal hunt. In a world increasingly covered with identical suburban sprawl, the Magdelan Islands profit by drawing people to a place that looks completely different and has something no one can copy. No corporation can open up a franchise of its seal pup nursery in Times Square. The seal tours were just the first of Bressler’s animal journeys: now he runs Natural Habitat Adventures, which takes tiny groups to secluded areas where animals live in the wild.

But to get there, Bressler first had to tackle all of the logistics and politics of the seal hunt. About 70% of the the hunting happens on “the Front,” the wildly inacessable sea off Newfoundland and Labrador. But the pictures and protest focus on the Gulf

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