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Staff at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center helped rescue a young seal from a jetty in Allenhurst.<\/strong><\/p>\n By WILLIAM CLARK<\/strong><\/p>\n Robert Bedford enjoys living in the Wanamassa section of Ocean Township.<\/p>\n But during his lunch breaks, he takes a ride down to the fisherman\u2019s lot in Asbury Park and takes a walk north on the beach.<\/p>\n He usually reaches the fishing pier in Allenhurst, pulls a U-Turn, and heads back to his car to resume his shift.<\/p>\n But on Mon., Feb. 19\u00a0 Bedford was flagged down by two students from Monmouth University who were walking on the jetty. They said they needed help.<\/p>\n They were fine, but they said they could see a seal trapped in the gap between the stones of the jetty.<\/p>\n As Bedford made his way out he looked down and sure enough a small seal was wedged between the rocks.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought this thing is really in there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The sea creature started making noises of distress, something the girls said they hadn\u2019t heard. Bedford believes they walked out to get a look at the ocean and just happened to look down at the right time.<\/p>\n Bedford and the women pulled out their phones and started calling for help.\u00a0 Bedford took to Google and found\u00a0 the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even know if they were in New Jersey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fortunately, the person who answered the phone said that they could help.\u00a0 So Bedford pulled his jacket tight, called his boss and said that he needed the afternoon off. He needed to make sure that this seal found safety.<\/p>\n \u201cI was emotionally invested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Eventually, a member of the Allenhurst Police Department arrived. One point he made clear to the three of them was that they shouldn\u2019t post anything online about the seal. It would only attract unneeded attention that could slow down the help.<\/p>\n The first member of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center showed up and took a look at the seal. He estimated that it was between a year or two old, female and much, much bigger than he expected.<\/p>\n With the tide starting to rise and a sense of urgency starting to grip the responders, both members of the MMSC started to strategize how they were going to lift a scared 64 pound sea creature who was actively trying to bite anything that got close to it.<\/p>\n The police officer had two animal control poles in his squad car and with some strength, patience and care, the two MMSC members were able to dislodge the seal from the crack in the rocks.<\/p>\n They put the seal in the crate and the next day were able to release her back in the wild.<\/p>\n \u201cI want people to know about the organization,\u201d Bedford said. They were fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n He returned home from his lunch break and regaled his five-year-old daughter with the tale of how he watched people work together to set the seal free.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a wild Monday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After talking with staff from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, he found out that\u00a0 seals may look cute, but people must stay away if they see them up the shore. They are simply resting while they make their way on their migratory path. Scaring them back into the water may leave them too exhausted to make the next step of the journey.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Staff at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center helped rescue a young seal from a jetty in Allenhurst. By WILLIAM CLARK Robert Bedford enjoys living in the Wanamassa section of Ocean Township. But during his lunch breaks, he takes a ride down to the fisherman\u2019s lot in Asbury Park and takes a walk north on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28201,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197\/revisions\/28201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoaster.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}