Seal pup rescued after spotted outside Hemsby kebab shop

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Seal on pavementImage source, Dan Goldsmith/Marine and Wildlife Rescue
Image caption,

The seal was eventually found outside an amusement arcade

A grey seal pup has been rescued after it was seen wandering past an arcade and a kebab shop in a seaside resort.

The animal was a few hundred metres inland in Hemsby, Norfolk when it was spotted on Friday night.

Marine and Wildlife Rescue were called out at about 23:00 GMT after the organisation was alerted to the grey seal pup outside a kebab shop.

Dan Goldsmith from the organisation said he found the seal "shuffling along on a path outside an amusement arcade".

He said the pup was in good health and he and a colleague loaded it onto a stretcher to carry it back to the beach.

"The pup must have just been looking for some shelter, but got disorientated and kept heading inland," Mr Goldsmith said.

Image source, Dan Goldsmith/Marine and Wildlife Rescue
Image caption,

The pup was taken to the beach on a stretcher and released

The chairman of the Great Yarmouth-based rescue centre, added: "This was more the unusual end of what we do, but this is becoming more of a common occurrence.

"We responded to one the day before funnily enough, it was out on a road quite a few miles inland."

Grey seal numbers in the UK dropped as low as 500 in the early 20th Century, but there are now estimated to be 120,000.

Mr Goldsmith said the pups were "very quick and responsive... and they can look very docile and friendly, but they're not, they are really quite hostile things".

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