Clever Seal Goes to Desperate Lengths to Dodge Killer Whales

Seals are cute, curious, and apparently quite resourceful when they're trying to avoid becoming someone's dinner, per a story out of British Columbia. The CBC reports on the adventures of a survival-minded seal who, desperately trying to escape the clutches of the ravenous orcas pursuing it, hopped aboard the swim platform of a whale-watching boat off the coast of Vancouver Island. Nick Templeman, who runs an adventure touring group and was on the boat, per UPI, posted a mildly NSFW video online of the frantic seal, telling CNN that in his 20 years of whale-watching, he has never seen such a sight, with three or four families of orcas going after the hapless seal.

But the seal was persistent—and patient. Kirk Fraser, the owner of the boat, posted his own (somewhat more NSFW) clip on YouTube, noting in the caption the seal fell "three times in panic," then hung out on the boat for between 30 and 45 minutes before the killer whales finally gave up and the seal slipped back into the water. Everyone on the boat, meanwhile, was left drenched by the spray that kept spurting from the whales' blowholes during their scramble for a meal, ABC News reports. "Most intense epic experience ever," Fraser writes on YouTube. "Love you Nature." (Humpback whales, meanwhile, save other marine animals from orcas.)