It’s not enough that sea lions sink boats in Newport Harbor. Now they’re apparently driving them. A sea lion recently tried to seize control of an Orange County Sheriff Harbor Patrol boat. Seriously.
I saw the LA Times tweet a short write-up about how local TV station KTLA was going to do a story on this and went looking for more. KTLA’s story is here, but the Harbor Patrol has their own blog post about what happened, complete with video:
Apparently two deputies coaxed a sea lion that had tried to attack a boy onto their boat, in order to take it out to sea. On the way, the boat started going crazy. Lights flashed, it lurched to one side and someone seemed to be steering it from elsewhere.
That was the sea lion, which had gotten into another steering area used during foul weather. They eventually regained control, got back to a dock, and the sea lion eventually left the boat.
The Log also has a story with a few more details.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the footage it just shows how clever these animals are.
That is hilarious. The pups are so much fun to play with when scuba diving.
Oh please! He’s obviously scared wants to escape and just happened to crawl over the controls.
what a clever animal. they are cute seals
I didn’t know sea lions can be so much of a problem. I thought they were more gentle animals!
I wonder if we can train sea lions to blog?