Posted on 12/07/2018 10:06:02 AM PST by Loyalist
A relaxed-looking juvenile Hawaiian monk seal lounges near a sandy white beach on some green foliage. Its eyes are half-closed and it has a serene expression on its face. But the seal’s calm demeanor is surprising. Why? Well, there’s a long, black-and-white eel dangling from its right nostril.
“It’s just so shocking,” Claire Simeone, a veterinarian and monk seal expert based in Hawaii, told The Washington Post on Thursday. “It’s an animal that has another animal stuck up its nose.”
Simeone wasn’t the only person stunned by the photo of the seal and its unusual facial ornament that was shared earlier this week on Facebook by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program. The picture – taken this year in the remote northwestern Hawaiian islands – has since gone viral, drawing attention to a rare phenomenon that continues to baffle scientists who are now begging the endangered seals to “make better choices.”
….
Though no seals have died or been seriously affected by the eels, having a dead animal up their noses for any extended amount of time poses potentially adverse health impacts, said Simeone, director of Ke Kai Ola, a monk seal hospital in Hawaii run by the Marine Mammal Center.
With an eel lodged in its nose, a monk seal would not be able to close the blocked nostril when diving, which means water could get into their lungs and cause problems, such as pneumonia, Simeone said. A decomposing eel carcass could also lead to infections, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
* Hope and Change
It’s a juvenile. Well, no wonder. Must be like a FB challenge.
What is wrong with Streaking?
It will soon be mandatory at all airport check-ins.
Well for one, that question coming from your username!
When leaving my son at home alone I always admonished “don’t stick any beans up your nose”
A government funded ad campaign could certainly alert the seals to the dangers of nasal eels and to keep their noses closed.
LOL.
Yeah young monk seals need to quit spending time on Facebook!
Yep, and see post #6 for additional context.
Is this like toad licking? Psychedelic eels?
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