{"id":290079,"date":"2025-11-14T00:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/290079\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T00:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:07:11","slug":"police-chief-laughs-off-report-of-giant-animal-roadblock-then-sees-it-for-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/290079\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Chief Laughs Off Report Of Giant Animal Roadblock \u2014 Then Sees It For Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, reports of a roadway obstacle began coming to the attention of Cosmopolis Police<\/a> Chief Heath Layman in Washington state. Motorists were reporting that a sea lion was lounging in the middle of a forest-lined road, several miles from the ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the first report of it, I laughed and didn\u2019t fully believe the report,\u201d Layman told The Dodo. \u201cThen a second person flagged me down and said the same thing. So, I went to check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Layman was understandably dubious \u2014 never had anything like this been reported to him before. But sure enough, arriving at the scene, this is what he saw:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Cosmopolis Police Department\/Heath Layman<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was going to be a small seal, but it wasn’t, he (or she, I shouldn’t assume their gender) was firmly established in the middle of the eastbound lane of the county road and wasn’t interested in moving,\u201d Layman said.<\/p>\n

This was no small seal, however. It was a rather sizable California sea lion, who, presumably, had arrived at the spot after swimming up a nearby river connected to the sea.<\/p>\n

Cosmopolis Police Department\/Heath Layman<\/a><\/p>\n

Layman positioned his car to protect the sea lion from traffic, but the animal showed no urgency in clearing the road.<\/p>\n

In fact, he (or she) almost seemed to scoff at the notion of moving along.<\/p>\n

Cosmopolis Police Department\/Heath Layman<\/a><\/p>\n

For help in urging the sea lion along, Layman alerted the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/a>\u00a0and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And before long, the road was clear of living obstacles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sea lion eventually left the roadway, returning to the river,\u201d Layman said.<\/p>\n

Cosmopolis Police Department\/Heath Layman<\/a><\/p>\n

The situation had been resolved peaceably, but the sea lion left quite an impression on the police chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a unique incident,\u201d Layman said. \u201cI\u2019ve been at this department for over 28 years \u2026 it was a first for me. It was a unique and memorable day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sea<\/a>Sea Lion Spotted With The Strangest Thing Around His NeckIt was NOT easy to get it off …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, reports of a roadway obstacle began coming to the attention of Cosmopolis Police Chief Heath Layman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[616,79,152236,148199,615,4798,613,2002,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-290079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-daily-dodo","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-sea-lion-blocks-road","11":"tag-sea-lions","12":"tag-standard","13":"tag-stephen-messenger","14":"tag-the-dodo","15":"tag-washington","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}