Watch a sea lion grab a girl by her dress and drag her into the water. Fortunately, the girl was saved.
You must have seen an adult California sea lion in “circus” balancing a ball on its nose and jumping through hoops. While they are not very aggressive by nature, in the wild they can seem to be a different animal.
That’s what was observed in Steveston recently.
Steveston is a seaside community on Canada’s western coast, near Vancouver. People had gathered at a dock in Steveston, and some were seen taking pictures of a Californian sea lion, marveling at its size.
The 6-foot animal (weighing about 610 to 860 pounds) then swam closer to the dock after grabbing a piece of food that someone threw in the water. The sea lion then got closer to a little girl kneeling near the dock, and then went back in the water.
The girl then sat on the dock. But after just one second, the sea lion jumped out of the water, swiftly grabbing the girl by her white dress (thinking that it was food) and dragged her into the water.
Everybody around started screaming in horror, and a man immediately got into the water to save the girl.
Fortunately, both the girl and the man were safe.
The video was posted on YouTube and has went viral.
Watch: Sea Lion drags little girl in water
“My first reaction to the video is just how stupid some people can be to not treat wildlife with proper respect. They are not circus performers. They’re not trained to be next to people,” Andrew Tites, director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit.
In the past, a sea lion had dragged a 62-year-old man ‘Dan Carlin’ off his boat and about 20 feet underwater. Dan was posing for a picture with a yellowtail fish he had caught, when the sea lion bit into his hand (wanted to grab the fish) and pulled him overboard. Even though Carlin survived, his hand required 20 stitches.
