The seal pup was spotted at a beach on Hawaii Island.
Shocked officials in Hawaii have shared a picture and a video of a seal pup with a knife in its mouth to initiate a discussion on responsible waste disposal. The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (Hawaii DLNR) yesterday took to Facebook to post a pic of a seal pup playing with a bright orange knife at a beach on Hawaii Island.
"A Hawaiian monk seal pup named Manu'iwa recently weaned from its mother on a Hawai'i Island beach... Last Sunday the people observing the seal spotted it playing with a bright orange object in its mouth. As they watched the seal dive beneath near-shore rocks and come back up they realized Manu'iwa was holding a knife in its mouth by its handle," wrote Hawaii DLNR in its Facebook post.
"Had it been something other than a sharp fishing knife perhaps the video would have been endearing?" they ask.
The startling photograph has collected plenty of concerned comments as well as a few jokes.
"I said, gimme your wallet. Now!" jokes one commenter.
"Scary he found such an object. Not too hard to follow the old rule you learn as a kid: Leave the place better than you found it," says another.
A video of the seal pup playing with the knife was also shared by the department, which says that "there was real concern that the seal pup might swallow the knife."
Monk Seal and Knife from Hawaii DLNR on Vimeo.
The department said that the seal pup eventually dropped the knife under some rocks and it was later retrieved.
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