Up a creek without a clue

(Correction: Because of an editing error, a photo caption that accompanied a story in yesterday's City & Region section on a stranded seal misnamed the group affiliation of Eddie Ramos, who was holding the animal. He is with the Animal Rescue League.)

MIDDLEBOROUGH -- He had left the frigid bay behind and headed inland, apparently paddling up a river in search of fish, swimming through a flooded brook, and flopping across a stubbly suburban lawn: one badly lost little seal.

Early yesterday, the young harp seal finally abandoned his errant journey. The seal, weighing only 32 pounds and possibly born just a few weeks ago, had traveled more than 25 miles from Mount Hope Bay in Fall River. He was resting near the picket fence of a turquoise house in a residential neighborhood, perilously close to the tree-lined street.

''There's a seal in our front yard!" Amy Kelble, 21, recalled screaming when she discovered the misguided mammal before 6 a.m. Her six brothers and sisters ran into the yard and formed a barrier between the seal and the road to keep him from wandering into the street.

They asked their mother if they could keep him. They named him Kelby.

Instead, the Kelbles called the police to report the stranded animal. The officers who arrived were just as startled as the family. The police took camera phone pictures of themselves with the seal, said Nancy Kelble, Amy's mother.

Marine biologists arrived. They, too, gave him a name, Number 44, for the digits on the yellow tag they attached to his flipper. But they nicknamed him Squirt for his diminutive size; fully grown harp seals can weigh 400 pounds. They loaded the seal into a plastic kennel with some difficulty, as Squirt squirmed and resisted captivity.

''What's interesting about this animal is he got himself really far in and up the creek," said Belinda Rubinstein, a marine biologist at the New England Aquarium who studies seals. Over the past two years, she has tagged 43 other seals, though none had traveled so far inland, she said. Rubinstein said it is not uncommon for seals to leave the ocean and swim upstream in search of food, but the mammals usually turn around long before they have traveled a route equal to the Boston Marathon.

In Middleborough, the seal spent much of yesterday morning lying in the kennel not far from where the Kelble family found him. As television cameramen and neighbors jostled to get a peek at the animal, he stared coolly back with soulful dark eyes.

Squirt or Number 44 or Kelby was taken yesterday to the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, where he will have a chance to recuperate from his taxing trek upstream. Although he was spunky, Rubinstein said he had difficulty breathing. She also said she worried about his low weight. If all goes well, he will be released into the ocean in six to eight weeks.

Harp seals that visit New England are born between mid-February and mid-March on the ice pack in Canada and usually spend about two weeks with their mothers before setting out on their own. During the winter months, seals tend to stay in warmer waters around New England. ''It's kind of like a little summer vacation for them," Rubinstein said.

Earlier this month, animal control officials received another call about a seal discovered far from its natural habitat. A young harbor seal, more common off the coast of New England than harp seals, was lolling in the backyard of an East Bridgewater house, more than 15 miles from the ocean.

It is common for the seals to head inland up rivers, following herring and other fish, Rubinstein said. When they are ready for a break, they look for territory similar to their natural habitat. Humans should not approach seals stranded on land, she said, because the animals can attack.

The recent East Bridgewater sighting, as well as other seals spotted in the Taunton River, closer to the ocean, convinced Rubinstein that Squirt traveled to Middleborough on his own.

''They haul out of the water looking for ice and snow, which is what this guy was doing," she said. ''When he came out of the brook, he was just looking for a nice place to rest."

Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.