North Pole Seal Caught In Florida
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 8th, 2007
A bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus), normally found much farther north in marine waters, has turned up very far south in a freshwater habitat.
Caught Monday, May 7th, the 6-foot-long, 250-pound bearded seal had been seen for several days in Martin County, Florida, according to an Associated Press article, “Arctic Seal Is Captured in Fla. Canal.”
“This is the first time we have had a bearded seal show up in Florida,” said Kim Amendola, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Their primary habitat is north of Newfoundland.”
These are medium-sized seals, and indeed, live in the Arctic Ocean. In 2002, a male bearded seal appeared in Tama River in Tokyo, Japan. Named Tama-chan, the seal became an overnight celebrity in Japan, with crowds and television crews following its every move, merchandise going on sale and fan clubs being formed. It currently lives in another river in Tokyo, although the fad has now died down.
Black bobcats and arctic seals: That Martin County must be one very attractive location for strange interlopers. 
Is anyone studying the oceanic waters around the arctic circle for temperature and salt content. I mention salt content simply because if the water is warming up, then the fresher water that’s melting from the icebergs and land glaciers are diluting the salty sea water. Then it would be easy to understand the seal’s goof up. The water is the same (extremely close) temperature and salt content, the seal didn’t have anything to tell it that he went too far. Hope he is ok.
This one is really interesting — he’s a long, long way from home — and none of the Florida papers have mentioned it.
There was, at one time, a species of seal that lived in Florida…might they have been lost transplants, too?
And let’s not forget the cryptid mammal reptile of Florida of Mark Zaskey and Gene Sourwine. Maybe it is a candidate for this captured seal.
See Cryptid Mammal Reptile or Prehistoric Seal? here on Cryptomundo.
Nothing’s impossible, Craig, but Cockroach Bay (where the creature in the Sourwine images was said to be seen) is a shallow estuary bay on the other side of the state from where the seal was found — shallower (and significantly warmer) water (in Cockroach Bay, Tampa Bay, and the Gulf) and the critter would have had to swim past an enormous number of people (Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, the Upper Keys and past Naples, Ft Myers, and Sarasota/Bradenton) without being noticed. The seal made it down the Atlantic Seaboard without being noticed, so I can’t say it’s impossible, but not terribly likely, either.
I’d still put a lot more stock in the Sourwine sighting if the video had ever actually appeared along with the names and testimony of the ’seal experts’ as was promised — as well as an explanation as to where the sloping clay banks are to be found in Cockroach Bay.
Did anyone ever see Sourwine’s claimed video clips? He promised on the old thread he was sending video clips.