Female harp seal found on 127th Street, recuperates

A female harp seal that likely swam several thousand miles south from her home ended up on the beaches of Ocean City last Thursday.

The animal, which appeared exhausted and possibly injured, was crated by volunteers and workers from the National Aquarium and later taken to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey.

According to Robert Schoelkopf, director of the center, the animal was doing fine as of Monday.

Schoelkopf said harp seals, also called ice seals, have been traveling from as far north as Iceland and Greenland since the mid-1980s, when warming trends and melting ice floes occasionally forced them south.

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