#neiltheseal #seal #kpassionate
Neil the Seal's viral videos have taken the internet by storm but wildlife experts are surprisingly concerned. A marine biologist tells you why.

00:00 Neil the Seal
00:33 What Kind of Seal is Neil the Seal?
02:44 Why Neil the Seal Plays With Traffic Cones
04:12 Concern For Neil the Seal
05:48 Where is Neil the Seal?
06:43 The Best of Neil the Seal
08:03 Elephant Seal vs Car

Neil is a southern elephant seal. Which is the largest living pinnipeds. Southern elephant seals are often TWICE the size of a full grown walrus. Male southern elephant seals can be 20 feet long and weigh up to 8,800 pounds! Elephant seals only come onto land to molt their fur and to reproduce. Bull elephant seals will use their large, inflatable nose called a “proboscis” to produce a noise that sounds like a drum as a way to vocally threaten each other and scare away weaker males.

Which brings us to Neil the Seal. You can clearly see that Neil is not fully grown. He reportedly weighs around 1,000 to 1,300 lbs. He also doesn’t have that big proboscis yet. That’s because he’s just a baby. Neil was born in 2020 on the southern tip of Tasmania near Hobart where he was tagged by the Marine Conservation Program. So he’s only about 3 years old. Male southern elephant seals don’t usually reach maturity until they’re around 6 years old and won’t even begin competing with other bulls until they’re closer to 10.

Even though Neil isn’t fully mature, he still has that natural instinct to come onto land during the breeding season. And that brings me to why myself and other wildlife experts are concerned. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment AND the Marine Conservation Program have repeatedly told people to keep themselves and their pets at least 20 meters or 65 feet away from Neil. But people aren’t listening. According to Time Magazine, there have been at least three instances of people harassing Neil by poking and prodding him with sticks and even touching him… leading wildlife officials to urge the public to report potential acts of animal cruelty.

On the other hand, there are absolutely a lot of positive things about Neil the Seal. Videos of him are fun and most of them are harmless interactions. They’ve brought a lot of interest in southern elephant seals who are a threatened species in Australia. Since the 1950s, there has been an unexplained decline in the subpopulations of southern elephant seals in the Pacific Ocean. The reasons for the decline is currently unknown. Thankfully the population is currently considered stable and we want to keep it that way. We want Neil to grow up into one of those massive bulls who has a harem of 4050 females so that the population can continue to rebound.

Cited Sources:
[1] https://time.com/6550164/neilthesea...
[2] https://ocean.si.edu/oceanlife/marin...
[3] https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/art...
[4] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/stor...
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/australia...
[6]   / pfbid0hetjjgzwvbwujl5cxesd4qzenhxjnct6lan8...  

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