Sad Ending to Story of Baby Seal Rescued Off Street

UPDATE Mar 4, 2025 3:30 AM CST

A baby seal found stranded on a street near Connecticut's Yale University last month has died from severe digestive issues, a local aquarium announced Monday. Mystic Aquarium said "Chappy," a nod to Chapel Street in New Haven where he was rescued, died while recovering at its Animal Rescue Clinic, the AP reports. Chappy had been responding well to treatment for dehydration, malnutrition, and a mild pneumonia but began having digestive difficulties as he transitioned to eating whole fish. A necropsy found Chappy suffered from "mesenteric torsion," a challenging condition in which his intestines were "twisted around the mesentery, cutting off blood supply to a large portion of the gastrointestinal tract," according to the aquarium.

Feb 20, 2025 9:21 AM CST

An underweight baby seal is getting all the fish it could want at an aquarium after being rescued off the streets of Connecticut near Yale University. The seal was found Sunday afternoon by the New Haven Police Department after a passerby called to report spotting a potentially injured seal, according to officer Christian Bruckhart, a police department spokesperson. The seal was more than 1,000 feet from the nearest river. "We assumed he was here to try the clam pizza but I can't confirm that, we're just happy he's safe," Bruckhart tells the AP.

"We deal with some weird stuff all the time, but this is certainly out of the ordinary even for us," Bruckhart tells the New York Times. "Maybe we should just start keeping mackerel in the cruisers." Officers stayed with the seal until it was able to be moved to the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, for rehabilitation. Officers visited the seal on Tuesday at the aquarium, where staffers were working to get it up to an ideal weight so the animal could be released. They plan to release the seal in a safer spot, possibly along the eastern shoreline, but not too far from where it was found, says Bruckhart.

story continues below

Mystic Aquarium animal rescue technician Francesca Battaglia tells WTNH that the gray seal, believed to be five to six weeks old, was spotted outside Shell & Bones Oyster Bar and Grill in New Haven on Saturday. It was moved to a beach but just made its way back to the middle of the city, likely working off instincts to get away from water and larger seals that could hurt it. "He's a young animal. And so sometimes those first few weeks without mom can be a little tough on these guys," Battaglia tells NBC Connecticut. (More seal stories.)