It was an unusual 911 call on a Sunday afternoon in New Haven, Conn. At about 2:30 p.m., in a neighborhood full of auto shops, an IKEA and renowned pizzerias, someone reported that a seal was “running back and forth” near a bridge underpass.
When officers from the New Haven Police Department responded, there was the seal, flat on its stomach on a cold, snow-encrusted street in the city’s industrial zone.
No one knows how the seal, a gray male only a few weeks old, wandered so far from its natural ocean habitat. But in a city proud of its pizza scene, some joked it might have been drawn to the specialty slices made in coal-fired ovens. There is even a local specialty that would probably get its seal of approval.
“It was looking for clam pizza,” said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a spokesman for the New Haven Police Department.
“We deal with some weird stuff all the time, but this is certainly out of the ordinary even for us,” he said. “Maybe we should just start keeping mackerel in the cruisers.”
Within 24 hours, the seal had been rescued by volunteers from the Mystic Aquarium’s animal rescue unit. It was given first aid and assigned a temporary name: SYHg2506. The letter S stands for “stranded”; Y is for male; Hg for Halichoerus grypus, his genus and species; 25 for the year 2025; and 06 because this seal was the sixth marine mammal to be reported to the aquarium this year.
Though the pizza explanation is amusing, there’s a more likely reason for the seal’s appearance in the urban world. This is the start of “seal season,” explained Allison Tuttle, the chief zoological officer at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn., a town with its own pizza lore because of the Julia Roberts movie “Mystic Pizza.”
From February to March each year, the aquarium is on the watch for errant baby seals in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, Dr. Tuttle said.
“We might see a big influx of gray seals born about three to six weeks ago, and yearling harp seals come down from the Arctic about this time,” Dr. Tuttle said. “These animals can travel tremendous distances.”
Gray seals are commonly found in coastal waters throughout the North Atlantic Ocean. The pups typically nurse for a few weeks. They come ashore to catch sun and rest on sand or rocks, but can end up stranded or confused when trying to avoid people or unleashed dogs, she said.
“The majority of them are healthy, happy seals taking a break,” she said. “But sometimes, if they have injuries or are sick or have abnormalities, the team jumps into gear.”
Seals are native to Connecticut and protected under federal law. Mystic Aquarium’s 676 rescue volunteers use equipment stashed across the three states when the aquarium gets a call on its hotline.
This year, one gray seal was rescued in Charlestown, R.I. Another was disentangled from some baling twine and released in Weekapaug, R.I. A harp seal near Bluff Point State Park in Connecticut was rescued but later died. Also in Rhode Island, a minke whale and another gray seal were found dead.
The gray seal found in New Haven may have been seen several times. Early this month, a young seal was spotted going in and out of the water on a beach, Dr. Tuttle said. On Feb. 15, a seal, maybe the same one, was seen near the Shell & Bones Oyster Bar and Grill on New Haven Harbor. A rescue team said it was “active and bright, but going the wrong way,” so it was escorted back to the beach.
The next day, that seal meandered into the New Haven neighborhood, Dr. Tuttle said.
“That is no place for a little seal,” she added.
When the aquarium’s rescuers caught up to the seal, they saw he was underweight. They put him in their personal truck with help from the police and conservation officials from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said Will Healey, the department’s spokesman.
The seal was about a quarter- or half-mile away from water, Dr. Tuttle said.
The aquarium staff is now planning his future.
For now, the seal is enjoying a diet of diluted fish formula and fluids to fatten him up to a normal 35 pounds. He will be given whole fish tossed into a pool to help him adjust to natural feeding. And he will be renamed as soon as his caregivers assess his personality, something they do every time a rescued animal is brought in.
“We pick different themes every year,” Dr. Tuttle said. “This year’s theme is bugs. But we will probably see if the New Haven Police Department would like to name the seal.”
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