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Interacting With Top Predators


Huntster

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Incredible. I would NOT get into the water with that seal, but its behavior towards the man was almost like a mother teaching its pup to fish.

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I don't believe it. Why don't he show us video?

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1 hour ago, Huntster said:

Incredible. I would NOT get into the water with that seal, but its behavior towards the man was almost like a mother teaching its pup to fish.

 

I thought it was interesting she viewed him as a fellow mammal. Maybe even a prospective mate? She also chased off another female as to say....My human!

 

But just like Bears some of these seals may not be so friendly. Especially big males.

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Antarctic scientist dragged to her death

British research station biologist drowns during diving mission


First published on Thu 24 Jul 2003


The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Monday July 28 2003

In our report below we mistakenly said that the leopard seal can grow to a length of 7 metres. Most authorities agree that the female, which is longer than the male, can reach 3.6 or 3.7 metres.

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A 28-year-old marine biologist has been killed by Antarctica's most dangerous predator, a leopard seal, while on a snorkelling mission at a British research base.

 

Kirsty Brown, an experienced diver, was overwintering with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) at Rothera research station on the Antarctic Peninsula when she was dragged underwater by the seal and drowned during a routine mission to check on scientific equipment.


Normally diving is suspended if leopard seals are seen in the area. The seal was not seen before it attacked.

 

The two-person shore-cover team saw the incident on Monday, and a rescue boat was launched. Ms Brown's colleagues pulled her from the water and tried to resuscitate her in the boat. At the research station the base's doctor and colleagues tried for an hour to revive her. None of her colleagues was injured.

 

Ms Brown's body will remain in the station morgue until the Antarctic spring in October when the BAS relief plane can reach the base. Her parents, from Horsham, West Sussex, have asked for her body to be flown home for burial.
 

Professor Chris Rapley, director of BAS, said: "This is tragic and shocking. My heart goes out to Kirsty's family and her colleagues at Rothera. Kirsty was a vibrant, dynamic individual, committed to her science and with a promising scientific career ahead of her." He said there would be a full investigation.

The leopard seal grows to 7 metres (23ft) and weighs half a tonne. It is not afraid of humans and is known to try to drag people into the water. It normally feeds on Adelie penguins and other smaller seals, but also eats krill, a small, shrimp-like creature.

 

The BAS has been carrying out research involving snorkelling and diving for the last 30 years without a similar incident.

Ms Brown, one of 22 overwintering overwintering staff at the base, went to check underwater research work designed to measure the movement of ice on the sea bed.

 

Her research project involved looking at the impact of iceberg scouring on marine animal communities.

Ms Brown was a qualified and experienced scientific diver. She joined BAS in summer 2002 on a 30-month contract, after obtaining a degree in geology at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and an MSc in oceanography at Southampton University, before going to Adelaide University, South Australia.

 

She had worked as a diver on Imperial College's Greenland diving expedition and then as a field assistant in Greenland for the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme and as a research scientist in Canberra. She had gained dive leader qualifications and professional diver qualifications and had dived off Greenland, in temperate and tropical waters off Australia, and in UK waters.

 

The BAS Rothera research station is a centre for biology, geoscience and atmospheric science programmes.

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Very sad. 

 

We have a mountain lion problem here in Eugene, Oregon. They have been seen at the community college regularly,  and some neighborhoods on the outskirts of town. Ive found prints before in very well used hiking paths in town on the river. Cougars scare me. 

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It is a bad idea to have a black wet suit / dry suit. A black wet suit looks like a seal. Sharks agree, looks like a seal but tastes bad.

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10 hours ago, Catmandoo said:

........looks like a seal but tastes bad.

 

After having eaten seal and sea lion meat, I suspect I'd prefer being a cannibal than trying either again, and I'm the kind of guy who many believe would eat anything. Both are very red meat with the taste of cod liver oil.

 

Yuck............

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Cool video! The things you learn on the web! I guess I've never paid attention to seals before but I had no idea they could be deadly. thanks for posting that.

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On 6/19/2019 at 6:52 AM, NorthWind said:

Snorkeling in Antarctica? 

 

Can you imagine that? And doing it with leopard seals hunting in the water with you?

 

It's insane, I say. Humans are nuts.

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This lifelong corn-fed plainsman has swimmed in the Pacific and the sea of Cortez. I was 18 the last time. I'm 65, now.

I would no more swim in salt-water again for all the world, as I KNOW a shark would devour me, delectable corn-fed morsel that I am.

Hell, I won't swim in the Missouri river, a couple miles from me, as I KNOW there's a bull shark just waiting for me.

Now I forget where I was going with this, but it probably involved leopard seals.

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