A San Diego man was hospitalized after he was bitten in the hand by a wild sea lion. According to LA Times , the 62-year-old man, who has not been identified yet, was pulled down into the water by the sea lion during the attack. The sea lion attack took place at Mission Bay near San Diego, California when the boat was approaching the Hyatt Mission Bay Marina. The man reportedly was underwater for nearly 10 to 20 seconds – but was able to come up safely.
The man was reportedly posing for a photograph with a fish in his hand when the sea lion attacked. The animal allegedly leapt out of the water in order to snatch the fish away from the man – but in the process ended up hitting the man and injuring him.
According to Yahoo! News , the man was aboard a boat and had just finished a day of fishing. He was posing for a picture with a “trophy fish” that he had caught when the sea lion leapt out of the water and attacked him. According to that report, the man was dragged onto the bottom of the bay – which was nearly 20 feet deep at that point. He was eventually able to get away from the sea lion and managed to swim back up on to the surface where he was pulled to safety by his friends..
According to San Diego lifeguards, the sea lion was probably very hungry and only wanted to snatch the food away from the man. Sea lions are not known to attack human beings, and only a handful of attacks by aggressive sea lions have been reported. In fact, these mammals are known to be highly intelligent and are widely used in water parks and even by the U.S. Government to train scuba divers.
The man attacked by the sea lion suffered several bites to his hands and was in shock. He is recuperating at a San Diego hospital, a San Diego Fire and Rescue Department official confirmed.
The report of this rare sea lion attack on a human comes just days after the Inquisitr had reported about the rather disturbing news of a five-year-old boy being bitten on the face by a sea lion. In another sea lion related news, we had also reported about a strange phenomenon wherein several orphaned sea lion pups ended up hungry and disoriented on the southern California coast.
[Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images]