RJ Lamandola is a surfer and passionate photographer of marine fauna who, on March 21, off the coast of California, had a meeting that he himself defined “The most heartbreaking and traumatic of my life”. Protagonist not another human being but a sea lionas told by the same complaining in a post on Facebook: the animal attacked itgrabbing it with the jaws, dragging it under water and risking drowning it. Why did it happen? As explained by several experts in the newspaper Bradenton Heraldthe first to report the news, The fault lies with a alga.
Directly from a horror movie. Lamandola’s post is actually a frightening reading: the photographer tells that the sea lion is suddenly come out of the water and began to load it. The first assault was not successful, but the animal immediately returned to the charge, and Lamandola tells that “He had his teeth discovered” in a gesture of aggression, “Without that curiosity or playing that I usually associate with marine lions”.
How much the attack lasted. The attack continued for a few minutesdespite the attempts to complain to reject it. The sea lion gave him a bite to a buttock and above all he tried to drag it under water to drown it: The surfers has somehow managed to free himself, return to the table and swim to the shore. From here, Lamandola saw the sea lion who cleaned back and forth a few meters from the coast, continuing to look at him.
Fault of the alga. In short, a horror movie meeting that, however, which has previous ones very recent and above all an explanation. In fact, Lamandola denounced the episode at the Channel Islands Marine Wildlife Institute, who explained (also here) that the attack of the sea lion is not the first of the year: in California, in particular in the counties of Santa Barbara and Ventura, a real is underway Wave of similar accidents.
The fault lies with a alga, Pseudo-nitzscschia australiswhich produces one neurotoxin Domouic acid call. These algae are the protagonists of occasional exceptional blooms (the so -called Bloom), who poison the surrounding water with homeic acid, bringing many marine mammals to A real state of madness: This is exactly what happened to Lamandola and “his” marine lion.
