The seal called “F_ _ _ You”

For several months, on the Aquitaine coast, and especially the Medoc Bleu, a seal has chosen to reside on our beautiful beaches. Any young person arriving on the aforementioned beaches was surely due to experience a taste of adventure as this young mammal, having left his colony, took a shine to the surfers and those working on the beach in this part of the Aquitaine. the young seal had took the practice to visit the surfers and beach attendants in this part of the Gironde. The surfers had even given him a nickname “Phoque- You”, and it has almost become a pro-boarder!

But in spite of its empathic nature, a young seal remains a wild animal, which in a few months could become a rather imposing animal, which could cause a some concern for health & safety services, having even caused precautionary evacuations of beaches during the peak tourist period in order to protect it.

The best solution was to evacuate the mammal to new horizons (carried out by the Research Centre of Marine mammals). The seal “Phoque-You” was captured on the beaches of Grayan-et-l‘Hopital to be resettled in Brest to be hopefully released into the wild later in Northern Europe, among an adopted colony of seals.

No one knows whether it is for the protection of the animal, or that of humans and their interests!

With climate change, the adventure of our seal “Phoque-You” is likely to replicated more often than you might imagine!

2018 Xavier Naboulet (Macau), translation: Guy Hooker