Residents blame sea lion incident on people, not the animal or harbour authority
RICHMOND, B.C. — Jocelyne Dramisino says she made her little cousin watch a hair-raising online video before taking her to a Vancouver-area wharf on Tuesday where days earlier a sea lion yanked a young girl off the dock and into the water.
“I wanted … to make sure that she was a little bit smarter than other people have been in the past so that that would not happen to her,” Dramisino said during a visit to Steveston Harbour in Richmond.
The video shows a young girl leaning over the edge of a dock, giggling at an adult male California sea lion swimming less than a metre away. The girl sits down on the guard rail before the animal grabs her dress and pulls her backwards into the water. A man jumps in and lifts her to safety.
A spokeswoman for the Vancouver Aquarium said in an email that the girl’s family contacted the facility and is getting the appropriate medical treatment after she received a superficial injury.