Seal pup found on New Zealand farm 6 miles from nearest beach

July 25 (UPI) -- Residents on a farm in New Zealand helped rescue a seal pup that wandered nearly six miles from the nearest beach.

Dee Knapp on Sunday shared video as he walked out onto the farm and found the young seal resting in a field among his cows and sheep.

"There's a baby seal in my paddock!" Knapp said. "How weird is that? That's really weird."

Knapp told the New Zealand Herald he was curious how the seal turned up so far from the nearest body of water.

"I'm [six miles] from the nearest beach and [one mile] from the nearest river and I thought, 'what do we have here?'"

The farmer quickly decided to bring the seal pup inside, despite being told by the Department of Conservation to let nature take its course.

"I made the executive decision to wrap him in a blanket, bring him inside, give him a feed then take him to Blue Cliffs Beach and release him," Knapp said.

Laura Boren of the conservation department told New Zealand news website Stuff that seals are "resilient animals" and added that adult males can be dangerous, but Knapp said he felt the pup was in too much danger to be left alone.

"I wasn't going to leave it in the paddock for my cow to stomp and the neighbor's dog to eat," he said. "My place is right next to a road, he was distressed and he had a long way to go until he got to the river, so I felt that was a good time to do it."

Knapp successfully released the approximately 2-month-old pup back into the water and even named it "Lu-seal."

Boren said that while Knapp and his family had their "hearts were in the right place" it's not recommended for residents to bring animals into their homes.

"I think it's absolutely fantastic that they cared enough about the seal and wanted to see something done, it's more that we would recommend not going about it that way and taking a seal into your home," she said.