Holy Cow!
From the start, it was apparent to me that the sea lion was ducking under the boat like that to try to evade.
I am glad that, for the most part, we live at the top of the chain and not in the middle or bottom.
Heck, the whales are probably smart enough to understand that if they piss us off by killing us, we will come after them with giant, explosive harpoons and worse, and hunt them to extinction. Heck, they would have to come up for air sometime.
THAT is about as unenviable for the Orca with us laying in wait for it, as it is for that sea lion with the Orca circling around that boat.
The orca can probably see in its Orca mind as it reconstructs its environment from the little bits and pieces of sound that are bouncing off things, the hull of that boat and the seal darting about it, and can visualize it just as we could in the middle of the day.
Yep. I don’t mind being at the top of the chain.
I’ve been up close and personal with Orcas when I used to fish in Cook Inlet. They are amazing mammals. I have an old video of one blowing on the starboard side of my boat, going down under it, and blowing again just off the port side. That was, shall we say, an interesting experience.
We are not at the top of the food chain. Armed with a powerful and accurate firearm, we can take down any animal on the planet, but only if we see them first. If a mountain lion, bear, or orca sees you (on an ice floe) before you notice it, chances are it will get you before you have a chance to cover your ass.