Seal found dead had been shot

For days, she frolicked on a boat ramp in Plymouth, napped in the sun, and waddled into the sea whenever the harbormaster would clap his hands. On the beach, she rolled in the snow, looking like a cannoli coated in powdered sugar, as her silvery fur picked up a dusting of white flakes.

Hundreds of children, accompanied by their camera-toting parents, came to admire the blubbery, doe-eyed pup with her white whiskers, wet black nose, and shy, playful antics.

Then last week, the year-old Canadian harp seal turned up dead on a beach in Sandwich. Federal agents said someone had taken aim with a shotgun and peppered the pup with birdshot. Conservationists said yesterday they were stunned that someone would intentionally target the docile, 4-foot, 55-pound mammal.

"It's a really audacious, pretty cruel act," Tony LaCasse , a spokesman for the New England Aquarium, said at a news conference yesterday. "This was not any great hunting. This was somebody who took aim, probably from a relatively short distance, at an animal who had no fear of people."

Scott Weber, head veterinarian at the aquarium, said he believes the gunshot did not kill the seal. He said the pup might have been shot weeks ago, and only recently succumbed to pneumonia, lung worms, or intestinal worms.

Federal agents said they had not identified any suspects. They appealed for the public's help, asking for tips from anyone who might have heard the culprit brag about the shooting. Todd Nickerson , a special agent for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the agency was offering $2,500 to anyone with information that leads to a conviction.

Intentionally harming a seal is a federal offense, punishable by a maximum sentence of a $20,000 fine or a year in jail, Nickerson said.

The seal had swum to Plymouth from Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, following a wintertime route taken by many other pups, LaCasse said. The seal made her first appearance on the boat ramp on Jan. 17 when she wriggled onto the concrete and dozed for hours. The animal spent days there, delighting onlookers.

"She was resting, sunning herself, sleeping, just chilling out," said Plymouth's harbormaster, Tim Routhier , who watched over the pup to make sure no one ventured too close. "It was a nice seal. It didn't bother anybody."

Aquarium officials grew concerned, however, that someone might harm the animal, and on Jan. 22 they released her on a remote stretch of nearby Long Beach, with a yellow tag on one of her flippers, numbered 49B.

Two days later, the seal was spotted about 20 miles south of Plymouth, on Scusset Beach in Sandwich.

On Saturday, a passerby on the beach found the seal's carcass and called the aquarium.

Aquarium officials did not know the seal had been shot until they lowered her onto a metal examination table and heard a tinkling noise.

A piece of metal birdshot that had been lodged in the seal's head had come loose, LaCasse said. A necropsy found that the seal had four other pellets in her head, though none had pierced the skull.

Aquarium officials said that in recent years some seals have been found mutilated in New England, poached for body parts that some believe are aphrodisiacs.

But aquarium officials said shootings are exceedingly rare. Weber said he could recall only one other since he joined the aquarium in 2001.

"It's sad," Routhier said. "The seal grew on us all a little bit because it was hanging out every day and we kept baby-sitting it."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.