SeaLife Center to release seal at Bishop's Beach next week </MCC HEAD>

Story last updated at 2:35 PM on Friday, August 21, 2009

SeaLife Center to release seal at Bishop's Beach next week

BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
Staff Writer

A stranded baby harbor seal returns to his ocean home next week when the Alaska SeaLife Center releases the pup at Bishop's Beach. Milky Way - Midnight was found orphaned June 4 near Tyonek on Upper Cook Inlet. His release is at 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at Bishop's Beach. The public is welcome to watch the release, but asked to please leave dogs at home.

After Milky Way - Midnight was determined to have been abandoned, Rediske Air Inc. flew him to Nikiski, where SeaLife Center staff took him to its rehabilitation facility in Seward. By late June Milky Way - Midnight had progressed to eating live fish on his own and gaining weight.

Through the Alaska Stranded Marine Mammal Network, harbor seals, sea otters, Steller sea lions and other marine mammals are monitored if reported sick or abandoned. Volunteers watch stranded animals, including pups, to make sure they haven't been abandoned before rescuing the animal. Anyone seeing a sick, injured or dead marine mammal is asked to not touch the animal and call the 24-hour stranded animal at (888) 774-7325.

For more information on the SeaLife Center's rehabilitation program, visit www.alaskasealife.org.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.

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