Hot seal

Sahara needs a new enclosure to accommodate his grown up size of 310 lb - Image from The Telegraph

This news may be slightly old but I felt I had to include it in my blog. So here it is for those who have not read it yet. Have you heard of an Arctic hooded seal who is scared of the cold? Well, there's Sahara for one, aptly named too. Sahara was washed up on a beach in Morocco when he was just nine months old. When he was found he was barely alive and had shed all his fur. He was treated in Cornwall and then released in the Orkney Islands with the belief that he would find his way back to his real home. But seemingly liking the warm waters, he headed back south, and this time was found in San Sebastian in Spain. Today he is two years old and happily lives in the warmth of the National Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall. The sanctuary is studying his aversion to ice and is trying to get him to like the environs of his natural habitat. With the help of an ice producing machine, the staff shovelled ice into Sahara's enclosure and the first day he ran to the other side. Tamara Cooper, Sahara's carer says, “The problem is Sahara is an Arctic seal who is afraid of the cold. It's a bit like being a bird which is scared of heights." But now he is getting used to it and the staff thinks that pretty soon he will be a normal Arctic ice loving seal again.