In The Godfather, the threat is that you’ll sleep with the fishes. But no one mentioned sea lions.
Thus it came as a surprise to some folks feeding a sea lion bread crumbs in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, when the sea lion suddenly rose out of the water, grabbed a young girl and plunged back under the water with her.
University student Michael Fujiwara shot the video of what happened, which you can see below.
According to Marine mammal expert Andrew Trites, the sea lion thought the dress was food.
Robert Kiesman, chair of the Steveston Harbour Authority, told Canada’s CBC News there are signs warning tourists not to feed wild sea mammals. He said, “You wouldn’t go up to a grizzly bear in the bush and hand him a ham sandwich, so you shouldn’t be handing a thousand-pound wild mammal in the water slices of bread.” He called the family’s actions “totally reckless behavior” because the sea lion had already snapped at the girl.
Danielle Hyson, a senior marine mammal trainer at the Vancouver Aquarium warned, “The more and more we feed wild animals, the more and more we’re putting ourselves at risk for those situations.” She pointed out, “You saw him kind of initially lunge out of the water and give a little huff. That’s what we would call an aggressive precursor. So he’s letting the people know that he’s starting to get frustrated. And in that situation, the people should have backed off right away.”
Hyson added, “They look cute and I know people have a natural fascination with them. They look like they’re water dogs but they absolutely are not. They can do a lot of damage.” She expressed concern because if the sea lion broke the girl’s skin, an infection could result that would be difficult to treat. She said, “Seals and sea lions can carry some pretty nasty bacteria in their mouth.”
Bob Baziuk, general manager of the Steveston Harbour Authority, said, “It’s an unfortunate incident, first and foremost. I hope the little girl’s okay. But we’ve been trying to get that message out for years and years — don’t feed the animals. You’re just asking for trouble when you do that.”
Video below: