Seal wrestles octopus in rarely captured scene in B.C. waters

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...rarely-captured-scene-in-b-c-waters-1.2952020

Vancouver Aquarium excited about event 'rarely captured on film'
By Steve Lus, CBC News Posted: Feb 10, 2015 12:14 PM PT Last Updated: Feb 10, 2015 1:09 PM PT

The adult harbour seal was seen wrestling with a giant pacific octopus near Ogden Point in Victoria on Monday. (Bob Ianson)

A fight between a harbour seal and giant pacific octopus in the waters off Victoria's Ogden Point on Monday drew a crowd of onlookers.

Bob Ianson was out for a walk with his wife, daughter and grandson and had his camera at the ready when he spotted the seal, wrapped in the tentacles of the octopus.

"It was unbelievable," Ianson said. "That seal is probably, I don't know, four-and-a-half feet long? So that octopus is a pretty big octopus."

Seal showing off, said observer

Ianson said the fight drew a crowd of several dozen people, and was just a metre or two offshore.

"It was almost like the seal was bringing the octopus up the surface to show off what he had," he said.

The photos are rare, but the fight isn't, according to the Vancouver Aquarium.

"Octopus is a regular part of the harbour seal's diet," said aquarium research biologist Chad Nordstrom. "Actually capturing it on film is the rare thing."

Not the first fight

The aquarium had only one photograph of a fight between the two animals, taken by a diver many years ago, Nordstrom said.

The octopus in question is an adult giant pacific octopus, which usually grow to be about 15 kilograms, but can be much larger.

This was the second octopus/harbour seal encounter to be captured at Ogden Point. The first was a video taken two years ago.

Bob Ianson is thrilled with the attention his photos have received, and is happy he recorded the memory for his two-year-old grandson, who picked an inopportune time to take a nap.

"My daughter leaned down to tell him, 'look at the seal' as his head hit the side of stroller. He was absolutely passed out. He missed the whole process."

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[Mighty Sylvan]

Cool, it looked like the octopus was wearing down the seal in the beginning.

 

[Bent-Tip]

I was rooting for the octopus !

 

[Dave H]

As a 17 year old I caught quite a few Octopus to make spending money and wrestled with a few bigger than that one.
My biggest was 55 lbs dressed and about 10 feet across, but the biggest ones I've heard of were captured near Prince Rupert by a diver back in the 60's. One was about 32 feet across and the other a bit smaller. Estimated weights were in the 400 to 600 lb range and there is an interview between the then Curator of the Vancouver Aquarium and the diver who caught them somewhere in the CBC Radio Archives. I heard the original story when I was in the Navy, in 1965, and then heard the interview again when I lived in Sandspit, about 1989 or 1990.
They do get huge.

This is speculative but it wouldn't surprise me if that Octopus was on its way out when the seal found it, which is why the seal handled it so easily.
Octopus don't live very long and once they reproduce they die fairly quickly, which may be the case here. Along comes the seal, there's a brief encounter with the Octopus grabbing on but ineffectually and it's dinner for the seal. He just had to shake off the tentacles still stuck on him.
I don't doubt a seal could handle a smaller one though.

Great little vid regardless and thanks for sharing it.


Take care.