A curious young seal invaded a New Zealand home, harassing the family’s cat and hanging out in the hallway for a few hours. The Ross family received an unexpected visitor on Wednesday morning. Phil Ross is a marine biologist working at the University of Waikato. He and his wife Jenn have two children, Noah and Ari, and live just over 164 meters from the beach where they often see seals, especially this time of year. The seal was entered through one of the family’s cat flaps on either the garage door or the front door. Just before 6am, Jenn left to go to the gym. “As he got into the car, something barked underneath and he stirred. He thought it was someone’s dog, but didn’t think much of it.” Phil explained. When she returned an hour later, she opened the door to find the family’s newest pet – “a cute seal”. “He got a little scared and went down the hall to the spare room.” Phil identified the seal as a 10-month-old seal from New Zealand. He entered the house and proceeded to terrorize the family cat, but Phil suspected that the cat might be mostly to blame. MILITARY VETERANS PRESERVE CORAL REEFS IN UNIQUE FLORIDA DIVING MISSION “I haven’t heard of seals going through cat fins before, but I blame our cat, Coco. Coco is quite territorial and tends to go after the dogs. I imagine she took a swipe at the seal, which didn’t back down. , and then proceeded to chase her around the side of the house and through two cat flaps, into the garage and then into the bottom of our house.” Phil explained to FOX 9 in an email. “Coco hid at the neighbor’s house and didn’t he would return home until the seal was gone. Then, for the next day, he wouldn’t go downstairs where the seal was. We didn’t see the seal/cat interaction, but it was obviously something Coco didn’t enjoy.” The seal was captured by a ranger to return to the sea safely. (Jen and Ari Ross) US NAVY SAILORS REUNITE DOGS SAVED FROM NEAR-CERTAIN DEATH IN MIDDLE EAST The young seal was in the house for about 90 minutes before Jenn led her into the open, where she was later captured by a ranger from the Department of Conservation. “Jenn, my wife, is very cool in these situations and handled the situation perfectly,” he continued. The seal was safely released back into a local estuary, Phil said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “It’s very common for young seals to end up in unusual parts of the coastline at this time of year. The young are starting to wean, go out on their own, and like most teenagers, they can make bad decisions about where they end up. We just had a pretty big storm so several seals appear on the beach to rest and recover before going out to sea again. This particular seal was apparently in good condition so we decided to explore the sand dunecs and they ended up on nearby roads and houses,” said Phil Sarah Rumpf is a digital production assistant at Fox News. You can reach her on Twitter at @rumpfsarahc
