DEWEY BEACH, Del.- An injured male gray seal pup rescued Tuesday morning from the beach in Dewey Beach is at the National Aquarium in Baltimore for treatment.

According to the Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation (MERR) Institute, the seal had been resting on the beach on Chesapeake Street throughout the Easter weekend.

The pup is one of 14 gray seal pups that have visited Delaware beaches in the past month, and one of over 100 seals that MERR has responded to this season, MERR officials said.

MERR officials said this pup looked and acted like all of the other pups of its species, engaging in lots of sleeping, stretching and scratching, until Monday evening when its condition started to decline and intervention was deemed necessary.

The MERR rescue team transported the seal to the National Aquarium for rehabilitation, where it was assessed and found to have an infected wound affecting one of his flippers. MERR officials said they hope he will make a speedy recovery so that he can be returned to the wild as soon as possible.

According to MERR, seals can often be found resting on Delaware beaches and around other waterways from November through early May. They need to get out of the water to sleep so they may just be resting, and not necessarily ill or injured. The best thing to do when someone sees a seal is to contact MERR at the 24-hour stranding hotline at 302-228-5029 so that trained responders can assess the seal to see if there is anything wrong with it.

People should maintain a minimum distance of 150 feet from a seal, and keep dogs leashed to avoid interactions that will frighten the seal, and potentially cause injury to both animals.