My husband and I pick up trash along the shore, and in some magical-superstitious way, I believe removing plastic pays for my pleasure on our daily walks.

Yesterday morning there was a seal resting onshore. She was alive but unwell, sick or injured. She would either live or die and nothing I could do would aid her survival. We gave her a wide berth during our walk so as not to unduly hasten her death. She was our second beached seal already this season. The body of another seal rots higher up the beach.

More often we see sea lions swimming in surf or basking just beyond the surf line. But we have found them dead onshore with a bullet wound in their face. You will have to take my word for that. I do not take photographs of everything.

Years ago at a writing retreat, a woman described how she became a writer. It began with a solo vacation on the western edge of the Olympic Peninsula. “I found an abandoned baby seal,” she began. And I sat upright in the audience, waiting for her understanding. But no, she “rescued” that baby marine mammal. She took it from the beach, put it in the back of her car, and drove it to Seattle. I waited for her to admit her terrible error. She never did.

At best, she stole a baby from its mother. Signs at many beach access locations warn against interfering with marine mammal, particularly baby seals, which have been left by their mothers while the parents fish.

At best, that baby and mother were separated for all time, a shelter was able to get the baby to feed, and perhaps release it later. I do not know that this ever happens. The more likely outcome would be that the baby sickens and dies or lives and spends the remainder of its life in a compound or cage.

Sea mammals are beautiful and smart, and most of us would not be willing to eat one. They have appealing faces and large eyes that seem too human. We cry at the thought of clubbing baby seals. Charities garner funding with photos and videos of bloody beaches.

The Marine Mammal Act levies heavy fines for interfering with sea mammals or allowing them to be interfered with—think people wanting to touch the animal or “help” the weak animal back into the ocean, consider loose dogs on the beach.

Three women hovered near the seal this morning. One of them had, thankfully, leashed her dog, a dog which has in the past harassed a baby seal, driving it into the surf. I approached one woman, who stood too close.

“We don’t know who to call,” she said.

“It will live or or it will die, and there is nothing you can do to help.”

“Won’t they come and put it back in the water?”

I shook my head. “They might stake out the seal with signs warning people to keep their distance. You need to stay back and give it space. The seal needs to rest, and she will live or die.” We have been through this before.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

What for? I wondered. The seal was dying. I did not tell her the truth, what I did not want to know. The seal was dead by afternoon.

In our hubris, our self-importance, our presumed human power to damage and destroy and build and create, we want to believe we can control everything. We want to believe that we or some expert can fix everything.

It is wise to accept that much of the world spins on without our help and often without even our notice. It is wise to place our humanity a little off from the center of the universe.

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