Russia: Tiny seal refuses to return to the wild at Lake Ladoga

An animal welfare organisation discovered that one of their seals did not want to return to the wild and fend for himself in Lake Ladoga, on Tuesday, preferring instead to remain with his carers.
When members of the Friends of Baltic Seals Foundation tried to release the two seals named Pasha and Kroshik into the wild, after 15 minutes the smallest seal, Kroshik, decided to come back instead of going it alone.
The foundation’s director Vyacheslav Alekseev explained, "Such a sensation happened to us for the first time, and our ‘graduate’ decided to stay with us and not to come back into the sea." He added that they had expected this reaction since Kroshik "was very small and very attached to us. We will prepare him better and for a longer time."
Kroshik was found by fishermen near the village of Sviritsa in the Leningrad Region on March 25 and was later looked after at the Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Centre. The cub was reportedly the smallest of its kind ever to have come to the centre.