{"id":126252,"date":"2025-09-09T23:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/126252\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T23:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:06:11","slug":"san-diego-tourist-caught-on-video-harassing-sea-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/126252\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego tourist caught on video harassing sea lion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">San Diego&#8217;s La Jolla Cove is famous for its large gathering of sea lions and, unfortunately, inconsiderate tourists who can\u2019t resist disturbing the mammals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The accompanying footage, shared Monday by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lajolla.ca\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Lajolla.ca;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Lajolla.ca<\/a>, shows a man repeatedly bending over to touch a napping sea lion. That\u2019s not only dangerous, but a clear violation of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fisheries.noaa.gov\/marine-life-distress\/frequent-questions-feeding-or-harassing-marine-mammals-wild\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Marine Mammal Protection Act;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Marine Mammal Protection Act<\/a>, which bans harassment of any kind.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"La Jolla Cove tourist repeatedly touches sea lion.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"576\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/00fc33a252a4ac7052a161422bbb2c02.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>La Jolla Cove tourist repeatedly touches sea lion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lajolla.ca\u2019s description begins: \u201cDon\u2019t be this guy: An unfortunate but apparently necessary reminder that the sea lions at La Jolla Cove are wild animals with rights to peace, not petting zoo creatures for your entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/yellowstone-tourist-faced-tough-choice-204901796.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:ALSO: Yellowstone tourist has tough choice during close bison encounter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ALSO: Yellowstone tourist has tough choice during close bison encounter<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sadly, this is not a rare occurrence at the popular tourist destination.\u00a0 It happens almost daily and, for whatever reason, there is little or no enforcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But such actions, when they\u2019re witnessed, almost always spark outrage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A top comment on the Lajolla.ca post: \u201cCan we issue lifeguards pellet guns for these special people?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Another follower remarked, \u201cIt\u2019s crazy there are people like this and I\u2019m grateful I know nobody that would do this. Absolutely stupid behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The San Diego Seal Society also chimed in with a <a href=\"https:\/\/sandiegosierraclub.org\/seal-society-5\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:link that shows how to report violations;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">link that shows how to report violations<\/a> to rangers and various officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The group also commented: \u201cThank you for posting this. Our entire page is sadly filled with videos just like these from daily occurrences at the Cove.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally appeared on For The Win: <a href=\"https:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/outdoors\/2025\/09\/08\/la-jolla-cove-footage-san-diego-tourist-harassement-sea-lion\/86048803007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Footage shows San Diego tourist refusing to let sea lion rest;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Footage shows San Diego tourist refusing to let sea lion rest<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego&#8217;s La Jolla Cove is famous for its large gathering of sea lions and, unfortunately, inconsiderate tourists&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[42315,14082,90,42318,59785,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-126252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-la-jolla-cove","9":"tag-san-diego","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-sea-lions","12":"tag-tourist-destination","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}