Terrifying Moment Captured On Video As Sea Lion Snatches Girl Off Pier Into The Water
I’ve seen some sh*t in my time (especially writing for Ozzyman) but this just about takes the biscuit…
In this video, filmed by University student Michael Fujiwara, a sea lion can be seen grabbing a young girl and dragging her into the ocean in Richmond, Vancouver.
The sea lion pops up by the girl as bystanders laugh. She then makes the foolish mistake of sitting by the pier’s edge and in an instant, the sea lion shoots up, grabs her by the dress and drags her into the water as people scream in shock.
The sea lion disappears as a man plunges into the water quicker than David Hasselhoff. Amazingly, the girl doesn’t appear to have sustained any injuries and can be seen walking away with adults.
“The sea lion actually attracted a lot of attention from the visitors there, including the young girl,” Fujiwara told The Vancouver Sun. “She and her family, I guess, they came, they started feeding the animal bread crumbs or whatever it was, and then I guess the animal got a little too comfortable.”
Andrew Trites, a professor who oversees the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia said that such an incident was extremely rare: “As a rule, sea lions don’t attack. They are fearful and keep their distance from people unless they’ve been habitually conditioned to expect food,” he said.
People in the video were feeding the animal and “taunting” it, which is a sh*t thing to do, he said: “People don’t understand that this is not a tamed animal you might see at a circus or in a movie, these are wild animals who are hungry and if they are habitually trained to get food, they will come close and want it,” he said.
Trites said that he did not see any “aggression” towards the girl on the part of the sea lion: “All I saw was an animal that was calm, curious and hungry. Even after it all happened, the sea lion stayed in the same spot, still waiting to be fed,” he said.
There’s already a ‘PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE SEA LIONS’ sign but I reckon someone needs to erect a ‘DO NOT FEED THE SEA LIONS, YOU F*CKIN F*CKS’ sign in order to get the message across…
WATCH THE VIDEO ON THE PLAYER BELOW: