Police responded to a call Thursday night about a “partial carcass” found in the harbor attached to “a foot.”
Let Officer David Hartman, spokesman for the police department, tell you what happened:
“At about 6:25 PM, Police received a call from visitors to the city’s Fort Nathan Hale Park on Woodward Avenue. They spotted a partial carcass at the water’s edge and thought to contact us. One caller described what they thought to be a foot attached to it.
“The caller was, well, sort of correct. What they’d spotted was the foreflipper, or pectoral flipper of a large seal. A seal’s foreflippers have all the major skeletal elements of the forelimbs of land mammals, but they are foreshortened and modified for swimming.
“Although we’re not certain which type of seal this is, New England has seen a recent rebound in the population of gray seals after their population was all but wiped out by the mid-20th century because of hunting.
“Environmentalists cheer the resurgence, saying the gray seal boost is good for biodiversity and a boon for popular seal watch tours in coastal New England.
“Officers at the scene of the discovery are exploring options for it’s removal as it’s unlikely the tide will float it out to sea. It’s likely the Department of Public Works or Parks Department will take charge of the removal.
“The animal’s cause of death is unknown.”
Let's just say shark attack!