Sea Lion Pup Gets A Ride Home In A Police Cruiser

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Sea Lion Pup Gets A Ride Home In A Police Cruiser

Police in Northern California picked up an unusual hitchhiker early Sunday: A friendly sea lion pup that had left the water and decided to go for a walk down the Pacific Coast Highway.

The sea lion pup was found at 1 a.m. on a foggy stretch of Highway 1, just south of Fort Bragg and about a quarter of a mile from the ocean, said Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies.

“Due to the darkness and the dense fog the animal was very difficult to see and would have certainly been struck by a vehicle if the deputies had not stopped,” the department said in a news release.

The sea lion, which had been tagged, was “extremely friendly with the deputies, rubbing against their legs for attention.”

He even posed for a photo:

The sea lion pup was about 30 inches long and weighed about 20 pounds. Deputies contacted the Marine Mammal Center and gave the organization the information on the tag. As it turned out, the reason the sea lion was so friendly was that he had learned to interact with people during a previous rescue.

The sea lion had been rehabilitated at the organization’s facility at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, Calif., then released, according to the Press Democrat.

As the pup was not in any distress, deputies were asked to bring him back to the ocean. They put him in the back of the cruiser, fastened his seat belt and gave him a lift home — but snapped one more photo along the way:

As of Wednesday, the friendly pup may have finally made some nonhuman friends, as police said he has so far kept to the water.

“There’s no reports of him running down the street or anything,” Mendocino County sheriff’s Capt. Greg Van Patten told the Associated Press.

Sick andstranded sea lions have become increasingly common since 2013, due at least in part to the disappearance of some of their prey, such as sardines, from local waters. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said more than 1,000 California sea lion pups and yearlings were found stranded in March of this year, compared to fewer than 200 in the same period last year.

NOAA said rescued and rehabilitated sea lion pups have, thus far, had a high rate of survival.

Vocabulary

sea lion pup

oroszlánfóka kölyök

police cruiser

járőr kocsi

hitchhiker

stoppos

foggy

ködös

dense fog

sűrű köd

to be struck by

elütve lenni valami által

to rub against sb’s leg

hozzádörgölőzni valaki lábához

tag

címke, jel

to turn out

kiderült

to interact with

kommunikálni valakivel

to rescue

kiszabadít

to release

szabadon engedni

in distress

fájdalomban

to snap a photo

elsütni egy képet

stranded

partra vetett, szorult helyzetben hagyott

prey

zsákmány, préda

yearling

egyéves állat

high rate of survival

magas túlélési arány

Kapcsolódó anyagok