Dead seal on the road: “For there to be an investigation, there would have to be a witness”

More than 2 km from the sea, the presence of a dead seal on the road near Paimpol on Thursday November 28 shocked the public. And you ?

Sami Hassani, director of Acmom (Association for the Conservation of Marine Mammals and Birds): Someone must have collected the animal and put it on a trailer or a flatbed. I don't really believe in the fishermen's thesis. If he was dead, I don't really see why he would have been recovered and even less placed there in the middle of the road, possibly causing an accident. The second hypothesis, more likely, is that the animal was still alive, very weak, and that the person wanted to take it to a veterinarian but that it fell on the way.

What do we know about this seal?

It was a young gray seal of the year, born in October or November. He was very thin, less than 20 kg, and had lost all his reserves, which could have allowed his capture. Because otherwise, even when sick, a seal struggles and bites if you approach it, it's a bit of a sport to catch them. We are receiving a lot of seals of this type at the moment at the Acmom care center which is housed in Océanopolis: young of the year who have been weaned but who cannot eat properly. Many of them die before the end of the first year if they are not treated.

For there to be an investigation, there would have to be a witness, someone who saw someone transporting him.

Will we know more about the causes of his death?

Yes. The procedure of the national stranding network, of which we are part, provides that the animal discovered, if it is dead and in good condition, is necropsied in order to discover the causes of mortality. Weak young animals like these often suffer from respiratory or digestive infections. The seal was therefore transported the same day to the Ploufragran Zoopôle, by agents of the French Biodiversity Office. Analyzes are still in progress, the search for viruses or bacteria may take time.

Could this case be pursued in court?

Handling a protected species is prohibited, so there could be an investigation even if there is little chance. For that, there would have to be a witness, someone who saw someone transporting him. We experienced a similar case a few years ago, in Concarneau. A fisherman had recovered a seal's head to make a decorative element. Except that someone had seen him, the maritime gendarmerie had investigated and the port surveillance cameras had made it possible to identify him.