| NEMO - Arrived 1st June 2004 | |
| Nemo arrived at the centre in Oban very early in the common seal pupping season. He was brought from a beach near Muasdale after the owners of a caravan park informed the SSPCA that a pup had been left in a busy dog walking area. He was not a particularly small pup but upon examination it became clear that he had been born prematurely. He had no teeth through his gums, when pups are normally born with a full set of teeth, and his coat was the fluffy coat normally shed in the womb. |
| Aside from being very young and having been separated from his mother Nemo had no other serious problems. He is currently being fed on multi-milk, a special milk formula for seals, until he puts on a little more weight. In a few days time he will be weaned onto fish and the amount he can take will gradually increase. Nemo is a rather adorable pup but is getting snappier with the Animal Care Team all the time. He is particularly grumpy when he has to be woken up for his feed. We are certainly not too frightened by this new aggressive behaviour since his teeth are still very small. His other amusing habit is to try and bite his own tail flippers! I don't think he's quite figured out that they are attached to him yet. | |
| Updated 2nd August 2004 | |
| Sadly I have to inform all our website users that we have lost Nemo.
Our loss was a huge blow to all the team and left us deeply shocked. Nemo died on the 26th July 2004 suffering from a rare heart condition which had caused inflammation of his heart and a periocardial infection. This condition could not have been picked up without specific screening and had never been observed by our local vet who has worked on seals for over 15 years.
We noticed Nemo becoming slightly more lethargic than normal on Sunday the 25th but since he kept eating we were not overly concerned. The following morning Nemo was found dead in the weaning pool. He was given a full post mortem that day to allow staff to learn from the loss.
We believe that Nemo may have missed out on essential antibodies from his mother as he was a premature pup and had been born less than 24hrs before arrival at the centre. The lack of these infection fighting cells allowed organisms to bloom and caused his death. However it is likely that the problems he had would have occurred at some stage as his body was simply not strong enough to fight any infections encountered. Staff will sadly miss our little baby but must continue to care for all the other pups we currently have in the hospital. | |
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