When Seals Attack...

what ever happened to hand feeding
prawn tails.....there must be something
positive with all these hungry mouths.
 
My LEH dream just jumped into the dangerous game category, and closer than Zimbabwe, awesome. My guess is there is more to the story than we are getting, never heard of a seal randomly attacking? Or they have eaten all the local smolts and have found a new easy prey.

HM
 
Would have agreed with you until this year when I have had two first hand reports from kayakers I know, of Seals doing just that.
Grabbing kayakers arms and having to be beaten off.
Strange, yes..but true
 
At the Marina we use in Sooke Basin we have a rather problem very large seal we have named Lucifer. This guy has been known to attempt to bite big men in the leg and I understand has had a few good kicks headed his way. As soon as we have docked in the slip he is right behind the boat and looking for fish. Once last summer when he saw my partner pull a salmon out of the pod box to take to the cleaning station he was up on the finger wharf and up on the side of our boat trying to grab the salmon out of his hands and almost fell forward into the boat. He will then race over to the cleaning station where you can see his frustration grow as he waits for a salmon head or frame and if you don't give him one he will get frustrated and has been known to use his flipper and splash you. This guy is just plain mean and will chase off the smaller females with pups etc and even stock the geese. He seems to be getting more and more aggressive and frustrated because people are less likely to fillet (no frames) because of the transport rules and are keeping the heads for either turning in or for the crab traps.

What is concerning is that this marina is also a campground and in the past I have seen young children sitting on the side of the dock with little fishing rods trying to catch Shiners and Bullheads. I would not be surprised at all if this guy ends up slashing their legs with his fangs or pulling one in. If this were a problem bear or a cougar the authorities would either relocate or shoot him. In terms of relocating it may be worth it for bears and cougars as they are not overpopulated, but I don't see the value in doing so for seals and some sea lion species.

One has to ask why we have Federal Protection Legislation for species that are so over populated that Govt. should be paying a cash bounty for them to reduce their populations and protect salmon species that really are of concern.
 
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Learned behaviour. Once it starts it won’t end. They’ll start attacking all of us. I was surprised this year to see seals following my boat at Bajo Reef off Nootka. 8 Miles off shore!!! One ******* followed me for an hour. A cull is needed.
 
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