A New Zealand family told Reuters on Sunday they were surprised to find a seal had broken into their home, scaring the family cat and lounging on the sofa.
When Jenn Ross returned home on Wednesday morning, August 17, she initially thought the buckets that had been misplaced in the garage were the work of the family cat, Coco. She hadn’t expected the fur seal that was in the hallway instead.
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“I hear this flippity-flop along the hallway and it’s like, ‘oh, that would be a seal, I can’t believe that would have come in that way,” she told Reuters.
After waking her children to the news that there was a seal, whom they nicknamed “Oscar”, downstairs, she called her husband, Phil Ross, who was at work at the time.
Mr Ross, who works as a marine biologist, said it was ironic he was not at home when the seal showed up.
“I try to make attempts to bring my family to cool places where I work, but on this occasion work came home,” he said.
The family believe the seal followed their family cat, Coco, through two cat flaps into the house as she “rushed to safety”. Coco was then found taking refuge with their neighbor and is still reluctant to go down to where the seal was.
They said that while it is not uncommon for them to see seals in the area, as they only live a few hundred yards from shore, this was the first time they had heard of a seal entering a house.
The Department of Conservation ranger who captured the seal said he had already had a busy morning with seal-related calls, suspecting it was the result of recent bad weather in the country.
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