You may be used to seeing a Tiger on a golf course, but a fur seal at the 18th hole is rarer than an eagle.
The young fur seal appeared at the final hole, below par, at Wellington’s Judgeford Golf Club on State Highway 58 between Paremata and the Hutt Valley on Thursday.
He was more than three kilometres from the sea.
The first sighting was at about 7.30am, according to the golf club’s Lyn Farnsworth. “God knows where it came from,” she said.
She said there were tadpoles and frogs on the neighbouring first hole, which the seal may have been drawn to.
According to University of Canterbury marine mammal ecologist Dr Michelle LaRue, the seal probably came from the Pauatahanui Stream, which leads to the golf course.
“That’s not a totally abnormal thing, they can travel pretty far inland especially when there is an easy path like a river or stream,” she said. “So, sometimes they end up in odd places.”
The Department of Conservation’s Kāpiti-Wellington supervisor, Melody McLaughlin, said the animal was a New Zealand fur seal, not a pup but also not full-grown, so likely last season’s juvenile.
DOC rangers responded to the call and loaded the seal into a ute, then brought him around to release at Titahi Bay, McLaughlin said.
”(The) seal was a bit grumpy to be moved (understandably) but otherwise fine.”
It was not uncommon for young seals to wander like this, McLaughlin said.
