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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Harbor Seal Diagnosis

Remember the harbor seal photo I posted a few weeks ago, with the eyeball completely popped out of his socket? I shared it with Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society to see what he made of the whole thing. Was it an infection, or an injury?

He said this was most likely caused by trauma to the eye, an injury that is fairly common in small dogs with short faces. It is very rare in harbor seals, however, since they have very large eyes and well-formed eye sockets. Because of this, he said it must have been pretty severe trauma, perhaps even causing a broken bone in the head as well which would facilitate the eyeball coming all the way out.

You really do learn something new every day!

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