LONDON — Sahara the arctic seal keeps turning up in warmer waters.
The young seal was rescued off the coast of North Africa last year, far from his native habitat in the Arctic. He was taken to Britain, nursed back to health and freed into the wild – only to paddle in the wrong direction again.
Officials at a seal sanctuary now hope to give Sahara one more chance to avoid life in captivity.
“We’re disappointed that he headed south and not back up north,” said Tamara Cooper, an animal-care supervisor at the National Seal Sanctuary in southern England.
The rescue attempt began last year for Sahara, a hooded male seal who was only a few months old when he washed up on the shore of Morocco.
“We think he left a breeding area in Iceland and got completely lost and followed the shelf down to Morocco,” Cooper said. “He hadn’t learned to feed himself, and he became weak.”
In April, the seal was flown to the National Seal Sanctuary in southern England.
“He learned to fight for his fish, lost a lot of tubby weight and put on some muscle, which was just what we wanted,” Cooper said.
The sanctuary attached a satellite tag to Sahara’s neck, drove him to northern Scotland and released him. Sahara initially headed toward Iceland, but when the sea became more shallow, he turned around and swam south.
He was found Sunday in the bay of Ondarroa, 45 miles east of the Spanish port city of Bilbao, where he was recaptured.
Cooper dismissed suggestions that seals such as Sahara like warmer waters, saying hooded seals have very thick blubber. “They shouldn’t even feel the cold,” she said.
The seal rescuers will decide later what to do next about Sahara.
“We hope he gets one more chance to remain free, instead of being protected here,” Cooper said.
