Sea lion crashes interview of Chilean fishermen who calls them 'plague'

TOME: A sealion disrupted an interview of a fisherman in the Chilean port city where hundreds of the mammals have taken to the shores. The video of the interview has gone viral on social media.

The fisherman was just explaining how the influx of hundreds of sea lions on the beaches of Tome is an unprecedented situation as more than 300 sea lions have taken refuge on the beaches fearing the presence of orcas and killer whales in the sea.

Scores of sea lions apparently panicked by predator orcas or gale-force winds have taken refuge on the beaches of Tome, a town in Chile pic.twitter.com/aWP8cVckMD

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 24, 2021

In this video, as the fisherman calls the influx of sea lions a “plague” while describing the situation, a sea lion behind him opens the gate and crashes his interview. The fisherman spots the sea lion just in time and moves away.

However, just before the creature tried to join the interview, the fisherman accused the successive governments of neglecting the issue, saying that nothing has been done to control the population of sea lions for nearly three decades.

“This is a plague, plague of sea lions. No controls have been established to keep their numbers down for 28 years,” the fisherman said just moments before the mammal interrupted the conversation.

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The video was shared by news agency Reuters and has garnered more than 10,000 views since it was uploaded on Youtube.

While these mammals flee their predators in the sea, the fishermen community considers the sea mammals a plague as they steal their produce and make fishing difficult.

Moreover, there’s not much the fishermen can do about them. According to a report, hunting them has been banned in Chile for the last 28 years.

The ban was enforced as the creatures, part of the wider seal family, were facing extinction as they were used to be hunted mercilessly all over the world including the South American country.