A seal waddled into a bar — and ordered a drink on the rocks.
So went one of the many jokes made by patrons at Sprig + Fern, The Meadows, a craft beer pub in New Zealand’s South Island, after a young fur seal walked in the front door on a rainy Sunday, sparking excitement and disbelief.
Co-owner Bella Evans said she was working behind the bar, putting up Christmas decorations, when the young seal entered shortly after 5 p.m.
“Everyone was pretty shocked,” Evans said in a phone interview Thursday. “A lot of people thought it was a dog at first, because we are a dog-friendly establishment.”
“It was a mix of shock, excitement and everything all at once,” she said.
The seal seemed “pretty relaxed” and was in the pub for around 25 minutes, including visiting the bathroom, Evans said. Video posted online by the bar — and set to the “Mission Impossible” theme tune — shows the seal waddling between tables as a customer tries to usher it outside.
“Today we had the cutest unexpected visitor,” the business wrote on Facebook. “… It wandered in all on its own for a little look around, absolutely stealing the show.”
Evans said she was initially worried about the seal getting frightened and the safety of customers, but the pup seemed “really mellow.”
The seal eventually settled under a dishwasher before staff members managed to lure it into a customer’s dog crate — with the help of some salmon from a pizza special on the menu. Conservation rangers then came to collect it.
“Everyone was joking it was so popular that even the seal’s heard,” Evans said about the pub’s pizza.
Helen Otley, a principal ranger for the New Zealand Department of Conservation, said the agency received “numerous” calls Sunday about the young fur seal, known as kekeno in Maori, which had been spotted in the area.
“The pub staff did a great job keeping the seal safe until the DOC ranger could get there,” she said in a statement to The Washington Post.
Otley said it was “not unusual” to see young fur seals in the Tasman Bay area, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, as they explore their environment after being weaned. The pub is about a mile from the coast.
“Seals can wander up to 15 km [9.3 miles] inland, often following rivers and streams. They can turn up in unusual places — like this pub — but this is normal exploratory behavior,” she said, adding that the department generally takes a “hands off” approach to seals.
“They are capable and resilient and, given time and space, they usually find their way back to the shore,” she said.
Evans said the surprise visitor delighted customers and staff, and sparked a flurry of jokes about drinks served “on the rocks” and the pub having the “seal of approval.” The seal has also left an intriguing scent for local dogs who have been “sniffing the trail” where it roamed, she said.
Otley said the seal has since been released at Rabbit Island, a small island in the Tasman Bay area, which she described as “a safe location due to its dog-free status.”
It’s not the first time animals have turned up in unexpected places in the past couple of weeks, with a raccoon passing out in a bathroom after ransacking a Virginia liquor store and a bear squeezing into a crawl space in a California home.
For Evans, who took over the pub around three months ago, the animal visitor was followed up by another surprise this week: a customer bringing their bearded dragon for a drink.
“We’re turning into a zoo,” she joked.
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