[via SHARK-L]
An unusual observation of sealion behavior near Ano Nuevo Island made by Sean Van Sommeran, Executive Director/CEO of The Pelagic Shark Research Foundation. It is of a Stellar Sealion (Eumetopias jubatus) attacking a Californian Sealion (Zalophus californianus).
[W]e observed dispalcement of water, gathering birds and a slick in the distance, close to shore off the North end of the island, almost in the channel between the mainland and the Island itself.
Big splashes, red water and big struggling pinniped of some sort.
Then the water erupts again, [i]ts a large male (subadult) stellar sealion with a california sealion rag-dolled in its mouth like a pit bull with a chihuahua.
The stellar sealion just destroyed the juvenile common sealion (Zalophus).
What’s stranger still is that the stellar sealion was not only dismantling the sealion but eating it.
This has only been reported a few times and was the first time any of us had witnessed it.
Here [are] pictures taken with my little 7.5 mp Olympus digi, they are now up on our image archive:
http://www.pelagic.org/archive/2007-may-8-stellarpred/index.html
At first we though it was a white shark predation on a large seal, instead it was large sealion eating another sealion.
Tip of the tentacle to JW
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