Seals don’t wear hats. Not on purpose. Photo: YouTube/Screenshot
Seals don’t wear baseball caps. Not on purpose, anyway, but seals are curious creatures, so every now and then, a seal will accidentally find some kind of discarded material, nose around in it, and, if they’re unlucky, get stuck in it. That’s exactly what happened to a seal in Namibia, just a stone’s throw from the ridiculous wave that is Skeleton Bay.
“It is not the first time we had to cut a baseball cap from a seal’s neck,” wrote the team at Ocean Conservation Namibia. “Different manufacturers use a whole range of fabrics to construct their caps, they can be natural fabrics like cotton or wool, or synthetic materials like polyamide or any other material that can be molded into the desired shape.”
Even if those manufacturers are using material that will break down over time, seals simply don’t have the time to wait for that to happen. And since they don’t have fingers or arms for that matter, getting a piece of anything that’s stuck (like a HAZMAT suit, for example) on them impossible to get off.
“Please let this rescue video be a reminder to all of us,” Ocean Conservation Namibia finished, “that textiles are also contributing to ocean rubbish and that marine animals are always the undeserving victims of littering.”
