Latin pop diva Shakira got up close and personal with sea lions in Cape Town, South Africa. CBS News recounts a sudden sea lion attack by one of the animals previously submerged in the water. Are sea lion attacks on humans common?
In the case of Shakira, the songstress attributes the unusual response of the animal to the “shiny reflection of the Blackberry I was taking these pics with,” which could be mistaken for a shiny fish by the sea mammal. Other than a few scratches — from being pulled out of reach of the jumping animal — Shakira is fine.
Although sea lion attacks on humans are not the norm, they do indeed happen more frequently than the usually docile nature of these creatures would imply.
Leigh Henry of the Vermont Law School recalls a time when she worked at a sea lion rookery off Mexico’s pacific coast. “The bulls charged us as we swam to the rookery,” she reminisces. Working to save wildlife entangled in fishing lines, ropes and other discarded trash, Oregon State University workers discovered that sea lions generally do not allow people to approach them — even when this approach could relieve pain. Not even machinery is safe from sea lion attacks; researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science reported that an underwater robot endured sea lion attacks while mapping kelp beds in California waters.
While these interactions with sea lions took place when humans were intentionally working with the wildlife or in areas frequented by sea lions, some sea lion attacks on humans occur entirely unprovoked. A case in point is the April 2007 BBC account highlighting a sea lion’s assault on an Australian teen. The 13-year-young girl was being pulled on a surfboard by a speedboat, when the sea mammal leaped out of the water and mauled her. Marine scientists suggest that the animal “may have been trying to play with the girl.”
A bit closer to home, sea lions have attacked swimmers around the port of San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that there were even calls to shoot the sea lions, which not only go after swimmers, but also contribute to the sinking of boats and do damage to the docks.