Green Yellow Puss on Tiny Seal

Observation: I never thought of seeing sick seal but what is that? Yesterday our family member gave us tiny seal and when I was nearly done I came across this green yellow puss between skin and blubber. I never examined the entire body. Thank you for allowing us to share LEO.

Alaska Veterinary Pathology Services Consult: Kathy Burek Huntington, Veterinary Pathologist writes, "Thank you for sharing this interesting finding. It looks like a small abscess. Too bad we can't see more. It would have been helpful to see where on the body this was located. For example, if this is a very young seal, it could be an umbilical abscess if it was located in the middle of the abdomen. In the future, if you find things like this that you are concerned about, you can cut off a large area around the area of interest, call and either send fresh as soon as possible or freeze and ship when possible and we can try to get a better answer for you. If your decision is to discard the carcass, another option would be to send the whole carcass in for analysis (NMFS / AVPS)."

North Slope Borough (NSB) Consult: Raphaela Stimmelmayr, Research Biologist and Wildlife Veterinarian writes, "I concur with Kathy that it looks like a small abscess. Since we don’t know anything else about the animal we don’t know if it originated from an outside wound or as Kathy suggests is related to the umbilicus. In general, abscesses in the blubber are rare findings among subsistence harvested ice seals on the North Slope. I had one previous case (very small pus pocket/abscess) in a bearded seal and it was associated with steatitis of the blubber (fatty tissue inflammation)." NSB-Department of Wildlife Management, Arctic Research Consortium Of The United States (ARCUS)