Stranded Baby Seal Dies After People Pet It For Hours On Beach [Video]

In an unfortunate incident, a baby seal died from stress after being petted for several hours by people on a beach in Russia.

The seal landed on the beach after being washed ashore in a storm. Locals and visitors walked up to the stranded seal and petted it for several hours before animal rights activists arrived at the scene and asked the people to get away.

They themselves stood at a distance after noticing the seal’s mother was trying to approach it. The mother stayed close to the seal for several hours before abandoning it. The incident took place in eastern Russia's Primorsky Krai region, Ladbible reported.

"Mother called her from the water, but the pup remained on the shore, and soon a bunch of people came running, and everyone wanted to help her, or at least take a picture. Dragged, squeezed, picked up. The mother stayed close for several hours. When the crowd was absorbed, she twice went ashore to the cub, but, having sniffed, went back. With the onset of dusk, it was completely gone," Larga Help, a seal rescue organization, wrote, on Instagram.

Soon after the mother left, the activists took the pup to a rehabilitation center. However, the pup, named Nelly by the vets, died.

"We are very sorry that little Nelly lost her mother so early, but we will try to do everything so that she grows up and returns home to the sea," the organization wrote in an initial update.

In another update, the organization wrote, "Nelly didn't survive this night. The stress of being in close contact with people on the coast was too high. But people got a lot of likes on TikTok. Sorry for the sarcasm. "

Seal Rescue, the rehabilitation center where the pup was taken to, took to Facebook to confirm the pup’s death.

"The news is sad. Seals baby Nelly did not survive the shock she received as a result of too active human attention on the shore. She died tonight from the physiological consequences of stress. Wild animal cubs are very skittish. Adrenaline stress hormones and cortisol kill them," the center wrote, along with a video of people touching the pup on the beach.

"We decided to post this video. It's all about how you can't behave when you meet a seal," the center wrote.