Family discovers an unexpected animal napping on their porch: a seal pup

You never know what kind of animal you might find right outside your doorstep. Recently, one family got quite a surprise after a very unexpected animal wandered far from home and decided to take a nap on their porch.

According to a Facebook post from New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, a family in Wellington discovered a seal pup outside their home last week, curling up for a cozy nap on their porch:

“It had been on a bit of a mission, climbing up the seawall stairs, crossing a road, hiking up a footpath, a driveway, and finally another set of stairs, before reaching its nap spot,” the Department of Conservation wrote.

“It’s not every day you come home to find a seal curled up on your front porch.”

The creature is a New Zealand fur seal, or kekeno. Despite the name, they are not true seals, and are more closely related to the sea lion.

It’s not uncommon for young seals to pop up like this during this time of year: May through September is known as “seal silly season” in New Zealand, when young pups and adult males leave their colonies.

These seals like to explore the wider world during this period, and locals often find seals in the roadways, public spaces and even their homes.

But the Department of Conservation stresses that this is normal and that the seals should to go about their business without much intervention: “They might look skinny or sick, with weepy eyes and a cough, but this is normal – seals are very resilient animals,” they wrote on Facebook. “Seals need rest, not rescuing.”

However they also said that if a seal is on your property, injured or in danger, it’s best to call the department. In the case of this sleepy porch seal, an officer arrived and relocated it to a safer location away from dogs and traffic.

Related Posts

Enduring Kitchen Mystery Rack

While moving into a new home, a family discovered a puzzling flat metal object roughly the size of an oven rack that featured evenly spaced, slightly raised…

MY DYING MOTHER CONFESSED THE SECRET SHE HID FROM ME FOR FOURTEEN YEARS

My mother favored my younger brother and forced me to raise him, so I left home at sixteen and never looked back. Fourteen years later, a lawyer…

A 91-Year-Old Woman Called 911 Every Night

Every night, 91-year-old Margaret called 911, not because of an emergency, but because she felt lonely. When a young police officer visited her, he discovered that she…

The Mysterious Man Who Visited My Children

My husband passed away just eight days before our daughter was born, leaving me to raise her and our five-year-old son alone. Eighteen years later, while telling…

The Doctor Who Never Forgot My Son

After my five-year-old son tragically died in the hospital following a fall while playing, my husband blamed me, left our marriage, and abandoned me during the darkest…

My Husband’s Unexpected Answer

When my husband went to the supermarket, I asked him to pick up a pack of sanitary pads for me. When he returned, I was surprised to…