CAMDEN, N.J. - A young grey seal has taken a wrong turn
and headed up the Delaware River to the Philadelphia area.
The seal, believed to be 2 months old, was first spotted
Sunday and has been feeding in the river and resting
onshore on the New Jersey side of the river around Camden
and Gloucester City. Experts say the seal was probably
attracted into the river by the schools of herring and shad
heading upriver for the spring spawning. "It's not an every-
day occurrence, but it isn't the first time this has
happened," Robert Schoelkopf of the Marine Mammal Stranding
Center told the Camden Courier-Post. "We've seen them all
the way up to Bordentown." Schoelkopf said that once the
food supply dries up the seal will probably follow the
current back to the ocean and the coastline up to Maine.
Last year, a beluga whale attracted huge crowds in the
Delaware, getting as far upriver as Trenton, 30 miles up
from Philadelphia.
Everything is flowing -- going somewhere, animals and so- called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks... While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood...in Nature's warm heart.
John Muir
