Friday, January 28, 2011
Seal Snuggle
Oh my goodness. And speaking of cute...
Thanks, Susan!
BTW, like a few other sites where I've seen this on the web, I feel like I should put up some sort of major disclaimer. Back when I had a blogroll (cripes, I have GOT to get myself to work on redoing that in a form that Blogger won't think is a hacker hideout), one of my links was to a set of guidelines for safe. legal and respectful observation of marine mammals - lordy, this video could really be titled "how not to observe marine mammals". That's a very, very large wild animal she's cuddling with there. These are said to be elephant seals, and I think that this must be a youngster, because Wikipedia describes the females as growing up to 10 feet long and 1,900 pounds - plus youth would explain the playful interest - but even a playful swing of that very large head in the wrong direction could've ended up with the woman being hurt badly.
But she wasn't...and jeeze, it's adorable...and I don't think anybody who reads this blog is going to be stupid enough to go try to repeat this with any of our local seals (who would've left the beach for the water long before you got anywhere near them) so I'm going to pretend for a moment that this video doesn't pander in the most awful way to our society's rampant Bambi syndrome, swallow my guilt, and just share it already. I hope you'll forgive me.
Is it too late to declare this Cute Week on Frogma?
I wonder if the seal who likes to play is still at the aquarium...
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10 comments:
The seal is positively smitten. I can see how one could be lulled into a sense of comfort with this seemingly harmless giant. But like you said Bonnie, even a playful swing of that head could cause serious harm. I'd be more likely to strike up a conversation with one of the waiters in the background wearing a tuxedo.
My first thought was, that seal thinks the lady's its mommy.
Cute is female code for "I want that" This T Shirt is so "cute" OH, this stuffed Teddy Bear is so "cute" . Gosh, that guy is so "cute" ETC ETC YADA YADA YADA.
Snow and ice since before Thanksgiving.. Need some valium!!!
Dennis G
Ha, a little cabin fever, Dennis?
:D
Bad enough down here, the snowbanks must be six feet high in Stormville.
Hello, my name is Bob.
Do you have any... fiiiiiiiish?
I was thinking about saying 'don't try this at home' but I walk up to hundred pound plus dogs I've never met before and do about the same thing, so I'm just as guilty as she is.
Great video!
This is probably off point, but hey, it's been a long winter ... and it has a sea lion in it ... as well as a theme of "why is he doing this?" ... so maybe it's not off point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFM3OUUL5fI&feature=player_embedded
I'm guilty of that with clearly friendly dogs, too. But this reminds me a bit of one time when I knelt down to greet a friend's two pit bulls -- they are the nicest pair of dogs you'd ever care to meet, and they were saying hello to me very enthusiastically, and I just naturally respond to a friendly dog saying hello by getting down on their level - but with these guys, I stood up again very quickly. I didn't feel like they were threatening me - quite the opposite, they just got even happier when I knelt down to say hi, and they wanted to give me smooches, and where with most dogs you can fend off the smooches easily, with a couple of pit bulls, I suddenly realized that wasn't going to be that easy.
There wasn't a shred of malice on their end, but I stood up because although I don't quite cotton to the Cesar Milan sub-dom version of canine psychology, I think that was the moment that I realized that I really do like to be the one in control of the exchange when I'm playing with dogs. Standing up accomplished that instantly & from that point on, any time I ran into Brad with the dogs, that was how I greeted them.
With an 800 pound seal child, that lady pretty much put herself at the animal's mercy, in a way I'm not sure I would dare to do.
She is so amazingly calm and relaxed, though (especially when the seal climbs over her) that I sort of wondered if she was actually familiar with them - maybe she's a research scientist who knows their habits or something like that.
More about close encounters with these critters here from a docent at a California elephant seal rookery.
Looks like the guy in the video may have been confused.
The waiters in the background seem to suggest that wasn't in California, though.
Love how he flirted with his tail in the air! Kid Sid Seal singing
"I think i love you"! haha ....notice all the waiters watching! I wonder how she finally snuck away?
Ha, I didn't even think of that!
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