Weak leopard seal gets beached at Kingscliff but manages to get back in the water by itself

A MALNOURISHED leopard seal washed up on a Gold Coast beach this morning but has swam away before Sea World could help it.

A leopard seal washed up on Kingscliff beach

A MALNOURISHED leopard seal washed up on Kingscliff beach this morning to the surprise of locals but swam away before Sea World staff could help it.

Sea World were first notified about the seal at about 7am this morning but when the team arrived the seal was scared back into the water by crowds of onlookers.

Now Sea World staff will wait for the seal to resurface before they try to take it in to check on its health.

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Trevor Long, the director of Marine Sciences at Sea World, said the seal was not in a poor state but needed assistance.

“There were no signs of trauma or injury however the animal was certainly malnourished.”

“We sent our rep down here this morning and our team had a look at the animal - however a lot of people crowded around the animal and it became fearful and went back into the water.”

Mr Long said the leopard seal was out of its natural distribution on the Gold Coast.

“We don’t know if it has health issues and we won’t know until we bring the animal in, then we hope it can be released.”

“We don’t know when it’s going to come back up so we’ll be notified as soon it comes back up on the beach.”

While seals do appear in Queensland in winter, Mr Long said they often got washed up after they landed on the east coast in Victoria or New South Wales.

“Once they get onto the east coast of Australia there’s a northerly shift of sand and currents so they’re slowly washed up here and it’s harder for them to fight the prevailing conditions.”

“Sometimes the welfare of these animals is compromised, either through acts of cruelty like people throwing stones or trauma like shark bites.”

“Unfortunately once we bring these animals in, in the majority of the cases we can’t release them into the wild in case they bring a disease or bacteria back to their colony.

“We work with this all the time and are trying to find a solution of what to do, as we must look after the individual welfare of these animals and we can’t just turn our back on them.”