Panicked sea lions nearly sink fishing boat trying to escape orcas
Commercial fishermen in waters off southern Chile were forced to fight off dozens of sea lions that were attempting to board their fishing boat to escape a pod of hungry orcas. The panicked pinnipeds nearly sank the boat.
“They were trying to climb onboard, and we had to spread ourselves around the vessel to try to get them off with sticks because the ones that were getting on were making us sink,” fisherman Antonio Zapata told Reuters.
“It was a dangerous situation because we couldn’t get the sea lions to go away or make the killer whales leave either.”
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. posted cellphone video of the mayhem, showing the orcas charging the sea lions as they thrashed about in the water attempting to board the vessel, which was already sitting low in the water with a full load of sardines.
Zapata told Reuters that he’s never seen anything like it in four decades of fishing, and while others onboard joked about the situation, he was genuinely concerned the boat would be damaged or that they could end up in the water.
“There were so many sea lions around the hull that we couldn’t move much,” Zapata told Reuters. “Every time we did, they got caught up in the propellers and I was worried they could break them altogether.”
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The fishermen tried approaching a nearby island, hoping the sea lions could find refuge there, but the orcas blocked the pinnipeds from going ashore.
The boat slowly made its way back to Talcahuano port near Concepcion in Biobio Province. The killer whales eventually drifted away and the surviving sea lions swam for cover.
“Some of the sea lions came with us into port, we couldn’t get rid of them,” Zapata told Reuters.
Generic photo of sea lions courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; photo of the sea lions courtesy of ABC.