Seals congregate at Narooma Bridge but Johnson the seal goes missing | Video

While there has been an unusual congregation of five or six Australian fur seals most mornings this week at Narooma Bridge, the resident seal known as “Johnson” has gone missing.

Tourists and locals have been excited to watch, photograph the video the group seals from above this week, including Beck Eldridge who sent the Narooma News some video, posted below.

“We do love our seals, I see them all the time but never so many together swimming,” Beck said.

Regular Narooma visitor and ABC News journalist in Sydney, Duncan Huntsdale also sent us a nice photo of the group of seals this week.

“We're here for the school holidays to visit my parents. Went for a walk into town this morning and from the bridge we saw some seals having a relaxing morning swim,” he said. “They were still there a couple of hours later.”

But Sophie Wiersema at Narooma Bridge Seafoods is sad to report that her special friend Johnson showed up about six weeks ago to say hello and then mysteriously disappeared.

Click here for more about Johnson the seal

“It is a bit sad and I miss my friend, Johnson the one-eyed seal,” Sophie said. “But hopefully he will be back some time.”

There is another regular seal, she has nicknamed “Winston” and she too has noticed an unusual congregation of five or six seals at the bridge this week.

The seals seem to be there in the morning and then disappear, possibly to feed out in the ocean, in the afternoon.

Generally the seals are present in good numbers in the inlet from March to October, but then disappear in the summer, possibly to breed, she said.

The seal haul-out spot across from Australia Rock at the Narooma inlet entrance has also proved popular with visitors in recent years, but National Parks warns not to get too close to the wild and unpredictable animals.