ShareThisTuesday, November 21, 2006
A California sea lion has forced us to update our list of worrisome things that tend to bite us from behind.
What a shame. Those playful, Falstaffian creatures _ the ones with the barking voices, the ones our tourists love to point at and our children love to pet, are now ranked with death, taxes and the Taliban, to name a few. But it only took one rogue biter _ he made short work of at least 14 Aquatic Park lagoon swimmers this week _ to scare us, literally, out of the water.
What is he doing? This is not the usual case of a stressed-out animal attempting to defend a habitat that we've encroached on. We've happily co-existed with Bay Area sea lions for decades. Is he really, as some veterinarians guess, just a head case? What if he's bored? Hungry? Attracted to the wrong romantic partners? It could be anything, right? We don't know, so we've ceded him the Aquatic Park lagoon until he has decided it's time to move on. Sea lions, 1, humans, 0.
For most of us, the lagoon's closure isn't such a loss in this weather, and anyone who likes to swim in 56-degree water in November should be pleased if a sea lion's nip is the most painful thing they suffer. But the episode does remind us that these lovable clowns can be mercurial, territorial and aggressive. They should be treated with respect _ and now, a healthy bit of distance.
