By now you have all seen the sea lion that pulled the little girl into the water. The short of it is that in Stevenston, BC (Canada for those geographically challenged) a young girl and several other people were feeding the sea lions that were gathered around a pier. The little girl then proceeds to sit on the edge of the pier. A sea lion jumps up and nips her shirt, at which point she is pulled into the water. I’m afraid this may give new meaning to the term “sealioning“. Please don’t with the comments about getting a girl wet. That would be wrong.
The video, while sliced and diced around the internet for various viral purposes, does show that after the young girl was dragged in, a man immediately jumped in after her and pushed her up to safety. The sea lion of course thought the dress was food. It’s hard to blame anyone for this incident and it’s a wonder that the girl escaped uninjured, as did the man who rescued her. But of course there is quick blame flying around the internet as we speak. Mostly upon the parents. Had the sea lion been shot or something as part of the rescue efforts we would have had another Harambe incident all over again.
The Washington Post reports:
“Attacks by sea lions on humans are rare… Dan Carlin was posing for a picture with a yellowtail fish he had caught when the sea lion bit into his hand and pulled him overboard. Carlin survived the 2015 incident, but his hand required 20 stitches.”
An adult California sea lion is about the same size as a 6-foot man and weighs about 610 to 860 pounds. Though the “cliched circus seal” that balances a ball on its nose and jumps through hoops is typically a California sea lion, such animals once in the wild are sleek and faster than any other sea lion, according to a National Geographic article.
Please settle it down with the #sealionlivesmatter jokes.
I’m sure that somewhere on Urban Dictionary sealioning is about to get a new definition.
And I had better not hear how the sea lion thought her dress was a loaf of Wonder Bread ™ … because it’s white and… ahh forget it. If you have to explain the joke, it’s probably not funny.
Not many people know this but the Navy trained sea lions to fight Nazis in WW2. The project backfired when they discovered that sea lions frigging LOVED NAZIS!
HA!
So is this the 2017 “Harambe”?
Only if the sea lion had been killed. That didn’t happen, so I don’t think it’s Harambe-esque.
It’s maybe closer to the 2017 kid-getting-eaten-by-alligator-at-Disney because of parent blaming. Although again, the kid was unharmed, so it’s a more toned down version. But all of them have something in common – all people ever want to to is cast blame, not solve problems or, sometimes, decide there was no real problem because sometimes life just happens. No no, we need to get our pitchforks.
Poking sea lions with pitch forks seems a bit extreme.
What the hell is Donald Trump doing when he should be addressing this sea lion problem!??!???
Also, this is why I don’t care if you just have a little crust of bread left of your sandwich, DON’T FEED WILD ANIMALS!
Agreed, let’s stop feeding Trump.
I ain’t lion…..when I saw the video my first reaction was to guffaw.