Spitzer bumps seal

The unexpected, whiskered visitor was bumped from any news-y visibility yesterday by the tale of the governor and the prostitute.

But that may be just what the lone harbor seal wanted. Or at least it seemed happy enough, lounging on a few rocks of a pier in Red Hook, Brooklyn, after having made its (surprising) way through the New York City Harbor.

I cannot claim to know what it was thinking, but can only put forward what I learned from The Riverhead Foundation that responds to marine mammals in need around New York City, that harbor seals favor one flipper side over another and so you will see them lying to the left or the right, a flipper tucked beneath as they survey the odd, passing tugboat, garbage barge or speeding water taxi.

The hubbub of interest roused about the seal was evident in cellphone pictures taken and conversations struck between unconnected people drawn, for a moment, to something different in their daily landscape.

Seeing the winsome sea-dog was pretty unusual and one "concerned Red Hook resident" (alright, I know him), called 911. That's what happens when a New Yorker sees an animal that is not a pigeon, a dog or a rat. Or, some might argue, anything that moves and has more or less hair than itself.

The seal was quite sociable, but, like any good New Yorker, knew the value of personal space. A natural student of proxemics who can understand that sometimes Two is a Crowd, the seal beat its flipper back forth when approached, but with only a bare whoosh of old fan blades. This, again according to The Riverhead Foundation, is done to remind you that 'I have flippers, and I have claws'.

A posting of the seal video on a popular Brooklyn real estate cum community blog, Brownstoner, had many readers leaving comments that showed another primary concern of New Yorkers: geography. While your reporter was concerned that the seal "would take a wrong turn into the Gowanus Canal", one of New York City's most polluted water ways, Brownstoner commentators were equally concerned about the seal's possible landing spots, and subsequent landing prices, in Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Clinton Hill.

One lesson learned from New York City parties is to not overstay. And so, without much fuss, but an adequate amount of documentation, the seal lumphed its way downwards off the rocks and slipped into the harbor, into a world filled with both silver flashes of herrings and the fast approach of the hulls and motors of boats.

The seal surprised by being as engaging a topic as the disgraced governor and though bumped from the day's news mentions by scandal, proved as longly, and much more warmly, discussed by New Yorkers, when they heard about it, as the about-to-resign governor Elliot Spitzer.

Whether it was an "aspiring urbanite" or lost wanderer, I chose to see the seal's foray into New York City harbor as a marine reflection of my own daily swim through an equally uncertain world of pleasure and danger, survival and adventure, with an occasional rest on an unexpected pier.

And, lest anyone be fooled by seeming differences, keep in mind that it's as equally hard out there for a New York City harbor seal as it is for everyone else.

Harbor Seal swims into New York City Harbor Video
To see a video of your blogger reporting on the seal on CNN's iReporter, click below