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Why Did That Sea Lion React Like That?

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29 May 2017

By Bronwen

For the last week or so, the thing that’s been taking over the Internet is that video of a little girl being snatched and dragged under water by a sea lion. You’ll probably already know that she, thankfully, was rescued immediately by a man that jumped straight in after her. If you haven’t seen the video, you can watch it here.

Now when we think of aggressive creatures that live in water, sea lions aren’t the first things that come to mind. You’d think of a shark or a crocodile – something that would actually eat a human. Sea lions are usually calm and harmless creatures but there’s a very good reason that this particular sea lion lashed out the way it did – it has clearly been fed by humans.

The reason you’re not supposed to feed wild animals (especially big, strong ones) is because they’ll associate humans with being fed. The fact that this sea lion was so comfortable approaching the group of humans standing at the edge of some sort of harbour indicates that it usually gets food. When it wasn’t being fed and saw the opportunity to snatch a human who was so carelessly sitting on the wall, naturally it went for her.

You also have to remember that wild animals are unpredictable and they sometimes do things without a reason. What’s for sure is that you shouldn’t get too close to wild creatures that could kill you in a heartbeat.

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