New Zealand: ‘Teenage’ seal breaks into marine biologist’s home

When Jenn Ross returned to her New Zealand home to find a few buckets out of place in the garage, she thought the family cat, Coco, might have brought in a bird to play with.

Instead she found a seal in the hall.

The young animal had got through two cat flaps to enter the home in Mt Maunganui, about 150m from the sea – probably in pursuit of Coco the cat.

Ms Ross’ marine biologist husband Phil was unfortunately the only member of the family not at home at the time.

He told the BBC he regretted missing his chance to shine, saying: “The big joke is that this is probably the one family emergency where it would be useful to have a marine biologist, and I wasn’t there.”

After posing for some photos, the seal – nicknamed Oscar – was collected by the Department of Conservation and returned to the sea.

Mr Ross said it was likely to be around 10 months old, and likened it to a “teenager”.

Seals at this age may make poor decisions, he said, like going out swimming in bad weather and then retreating inland to rest.

While it is common to find New Zealand fur seals on beaches and perhaps venturing up to paths and roads in this area, it is unusual to hear of them entering homes, Mr Ross added.

The seal was discovered around 07:00 local time on Wednesday (19:00GMT on Tuesday), as Ms Ross returned home from an early morning fitness class.

She woke her two children, Noah, 12, and Ari, 10, to come and see the animal, nicknamed Oscar in line with tradition in the local area.

The seal “growled”, Ari said, so the children avoided getting too close.

It also traumatised the cat, who took refuge at a neighbour’s house but has now recovered.

Apart from this the seal was perfectly housetrained, Ms Ross said, and didn’t make any mess.

“It was a good guest, as far as when I opened the front door and gave it some space it decided to go and be curious about the outdoors once more,” she said.

The seal was collected from the garden by a Department of Conservation ranger who had spent the morning retrieving seals from various locations – though no others had made it into a house.