Rehabilitation advice on adult male harbour seal We at the Irish Seal Sanctuary (www.irishsealsanctuary.ie), a centre that provides shelter, treatment and rehabilitation for marine wildlife found in distress on Ireland's coastline, are seeking help within the MARMAM community with a male harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) come to be known as “Benny”. Benny came to the sanctuary for the first time on the 18th July 2008. He would have been approximately 1 yr old, 4ft long and 27.5kg. He was rehabilitated and released on 16th August 2008. On the 21st September 2008 he was re-admitted. We had a case similar to Benny back in 2006 with a seal that was released 3 times unsuccessfully. Both that seal and Benny came from the same location in Ireland, and both have an unusually puffy face/head. Some veterinarians have hinted towards hydrocephalus, but unfortunately without access to an MRI this cannot be confirmed. The 2006 seal was eventually passed on to an Irish wildlife park, where he remains today. We tried to re-home Benny last year but could not find anyone willing to take him on. We decided to keep him in our pools. He thrived there until this summer. In late July 2009, we noticed he had many skin lesions and abscesses on his flippers and body. He was lethargic and remained outside of the water most of the time. We treated him with Sinulox and alamycin and the suggested cause was depression. After treatment, the abscesses disappeared, the lesions improved. In early August the first new pups were put up in the pool with him. Benny remained lethargic, disinterested and his appetite was poor. After pushing him in the water, he just bobbed there, floating for a few days without eating. We then decided to bring him back down to a kennel for better observation. In the kennel we noticed that he floats twisted to one side. He has regained his appetite but is extremely uncoordinated. Out of the water, he can longer displace himself. Half his body seems almost paralyzed. Recently we moved him into a deeper pool. Here we noticed, more than just being uncoordinated, Benny can no longer even swim down deeper than half a meter. We were thinking perhaps he has had a stroke. We have had his blood and faeces tested, neither showed any abnormalities. Our consulting veterinarians are at a loss as to what is wrong with him. All of us at the sanctuary fear there is little else we can provide for Benny's welfare. We are desperately seeking out any further treatments which may enable Benny to regain the quality of life he had before July. If anyone in the MARMAM community has any experience with this type of condition or recommendations, we remain very eager to hear them. Please email any responses to vols.iss@gmail.com Laura O’Shaughnessy-Hunter Assistant Animal Manager -- The Irish Seal Sanctuary An Clochan, Tobergregan Garristown, Co. Dublin Ireland +353 (01) 835 4370 vols.iss@gmail.com