In the immortal words of Leeloo, “plas halp.” Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
It’s very easy to anthropomorphize animals. We like to give human attributes to them, perhaps because it makes us feel as though we can understand them better. Which is why it’s hard to say for sure whether the little seal in this clip from Ocean Conservation Namibia (OCN) is actually asking for help or not — but I’m choosing to think it is, because the people working at OCN have rescued so many seals from entanglements off the coast of Namibia that it’s easy to believe the seals are getting wise to what they’re doing.
OCN workers routinely spend their days looking for seals on the Namibian coast that’ve gotten themselves wrapped up in some sort of trash. Sometimes its fishing line, other times it’s a fishing hook or a net. In one instance, it was a rope with a bucket attached. But when you’re doing dozens of seal rescues a day, it can get a little difficult to remember which seal you’ve rescued. Luckily, the one in this video warranted a second look — but only because it basically came to its rescuer’s feet.
“This is typical Cape Cross madness,” wrote OCN. “When we are dealing with 20 or 30 rescues in a single morning, things happen so fast that we can barely keep track of whether a seal was just freed minutes before by another teammate or if it’s a completely new entanglement.”
As it turns out, this seal had indeed already had a piece of fishing line cut from around its neck — but not before it left a deep wound — but there was another bit of line still wrapped around it.
“Surprisingly, this little seal seemed to know exactly who we were,” OCN continued. “He raced right toward the rescue net and gave Antoine absolutely no trouble at all. We know that’s not exactly what was going through his wild mind, but we can always dream of a day when seals aren’t terrified of us, but instead actively seek out our rescuers for help. Until that dream comes true, we’ll keep running.”
