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A “distressed” seal found stranded in a Merseyside field this morning could have ventured FIFTY miles and got “very, very lost”.

Experts believe the grey juvenile seal may have swam from a colony in Hilbre Island, in the Dee Estuary, and got lost.

The seal may have travelled along the River Mersey and then on to Sankey Brook, Newton Brook and Millingford Brook.

RSPCA vets this afternoon took the seal to Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Nantwich for recuperation after firefighters eventually coaxed it into a trailer.

The seal will ultimately be transported to Wirral and released at Thurstaston, near to the colony from where it likely swam away.

Video: watch the seal on the move

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Speaking during the rescue, Rachael Fraser, a marine mammal medic from British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said: “He seems very stressed, a little dehydrated but he’s okay.

“We’ve got a crate coming and we’ll load him up and then get him down to the Wirral.

“There’s a grey seal colony near Hilbre Island and that’s where we think he’s come from – but he’s got very, very lost!”

Police from Merseyside and Cheshire forces, the RSPCA and animal conservation experts were today trying to move the seal to safety, while trying to work out how it became unstuck.

Nicola Watkinson, who works at the Red Bank Farm Shop, said: “Someone rang up this morning nand said there’s a great big sea lion outside our shop.

“We don’t know where it has come from, the police are here and local sea life conservation people are on their way.

“The only thing they can think of is that there’s a little brook nearby, so maybe it has come from there.

“We’ve got traffic piled up with people looking at it, and there’s lots of police here.

“It’s alive, it’s moving around. They are trying to get near it but it’s not very friendly.”

Farm owner Gary Watkinson said: “It’s quite unusual. We just saw it lying there this morning.

“It’s definitely come up from the brook near here. I tracked its movements and you can see the marks in the soil.”

A woman who lives nearby said she saw the seal when she opened her curtains and assumed it was a pony which had collapsed.

She said: “I thought it must have been hurt. It was right up against next door’s fence. The poor thing must be so scared.”

A Merseyside Police spokesman said this morning: “A report came in from dog walker at 9.39am of the animal on a farmers’ field of Winwick Road in Newton-le-Willows.

“It’s within a field that’s fenced. A wildlife officer is en route - we need to work out who it belongs to, and how it got there.

“There’s no danger to the public, we just want to ensure the animal’s welfare.”