海角大神

Sometimes you just have to get away from daily life. You鈥檙e desperate to be somewhere new and exciting.

Even if you鈥檙e a seal, and your exotic getaway is a pond next to a parking lot in suburban Boston.

. The 4-year-old gray seal apparently crawled up a drainage pipe from the ocean, into a restful resort in Beverly, Massachusetts, named Shoe Pond.

Entranced locals loved him. They quickly dubbed him Shoebert. That鈥檚 better than the scientific name for his species, which translates from the Latin as 鈥�.鈥�

A T-shirt store started selling Shoebert merchandise. An ice cream shop concocted a special dish in his honor. City Council Chair Julie Flowers announced at a meeting that Shoebert had 鈥渂rought Beverly together in an exciting way.鈥�

But vacations don鈥檛 last forever. Particularly when your natural habitat is rocky saltwater shores. Animal control officials began trying to corral Shoebert late last week. They wanted him out of the pond before it freezes.聽

They couldn鈥檛 catch him. Perhaps he wasn鈥檛 ready for the party to end.

Then Friday he crawled out and slithered about 300 yards over a lawn and an asphalt lot to the Beverly police station.

鈥淭hank you Shoebert for having faith in the BPD,鈥� said the Beverly Police Department in a .

The gray seal was corralled in an animal carrier without incident and transported to Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. Researchers there discovered he had been rescued and tagged once before, for facial injuries.聽

His future plans are unknown. Likely he鈥檒l be returned to the cold waters of the North Atlantic. Then perhaps he鈥檒l work on a memoir. Doesn鈥檛 he ?