Like many local boys before him, Neil has returned to the stretch of Australian coast where he was born. Unlike most, he leaves fame, admirers, and property damage in his wake. Plus, it’s a 1,000-kilogram (2,200-pound) elephant seal.
Neil, the mammal 5 years that roars and is all fat, crawled ashore in June for its semi-annual tour of coastal towns in the south of the state of Tasmania, after months feeding at sea. That’s causing problems now that it weighs as much as a small car and has a social media following that far exceeds (more than double) the human population of Tasmania.
Their attack on local infrastructure has left bent traffic cones, a sign warning the public about seals and a fence that did not survive Neil’s attempt to jump over it. The rest of the time, he lies peacefully where you wantwhich is sometimes in the middle of the road, paralyzing the towns he visits.
But authorities say their biggest concern is that Neil’s popularity could lead to reckless encounters between humans and seals, dangerous for both.
Neil is a bad boy with a long record
Neil, the only male of his species to visit Tasmania in years, has gathered a fascinated audience of 2 million in TikTok partly because he behaves quite badly. On this 12th visit, his “crimes” have included pick a fight with parked cars and knock down barriers erected to keep him off the roads.
Such antics have led some on the internet to hail Neil as some kind of anti-authoritarian hero. But experts indicate that this is normal experimentation on a growing seal.
Juvenile male elephant seals need to practice for dominance battles, in which adults stand up and bump chests as they compete for breeding opportunities, said Sophia Volzke, an elephant seal scientist at the University of Tasmania in Hobart.
Since he has no other juniors to practice with, Neil can only rehearse with Toyotas.
They ask fans to leave him alone
Local authorities fear Neil is the latest wild animal whose social media fame has outgrown its usefulness.
“Neil’s fame is a double-edged sword,” Kris Carlyon of Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment said at a news conference in Hobart, asking the seal’s admirers to give him privacy.
“We have seen some pretty silly behavior, cases of people holding their small babies to bring them close to them and just to get a photo for Instagram”he added.
Authorities have urged the public to refrain from identifying the town Neil is currently delighting or terrorizing, depending on who you talk to. They fear that a disastrous encounter between the seal and a fan will force park rangers to carry out a risky operation to move it to another location.
Carlyon also warned that something worse could happen. In a 2023 episode, a walrus known as Freya, who attracted huge crowds in Norway, was sacrificed after authorities deemed it a growing risk to human safety.
“There is a risk that, in essence, we love Neil so much that we end up killing him,” Carlyon said.
Neil’s problems will grow as he grows
It is common for seals to return twice a year to the place where they were born to rest, fast, and shed their fur. Many species move inland during their visits to the coast, sometimes taking them to beachside towns.
What’s unusual about Neil is that he is the only male elephant seal coming ashore in Tasmania.
Volzke explained that the subantarctic islands south of Tasmania are home to breeding populations of elephant seals, and that Neil’s mother would have come from one of them to give birth. Females have been seen on land in Tasmania before, but because they reach at most the size Neil was when he was one or two years old, they don’t cause the same kind of chaos, he added.
“Humans got rid of these animals and now they may be returning and repopulating areas where they were seen before,” he said. “We have to find a way to coexist.”
That could be difficult for Neil and the park rangers, police and security guards who follow him. If he survives to adulthood, Neil could measure up to 5 meters long and heavy triple what it weighs now.
However, about 90% of male elephant seals die before reaching reproductive age, which is around 10 years old, Volzke said.
For now, Neil occupies a stretch of sidewalk, motionless and unfazed. He sometimes curls up with an orange traffic cone, much to the delight of his online followers. It is not clear why he prefers that place, to which he has returned even after park rangers took him away.
“He obviously decided that this puddle surrounded by cones, which are currently horizontal, is his place,” Carlyon said.
His fans understand it. The neighbors too.
“It’s one of our biggest exports right now,” said Dale Creamer, a resident of the town the seal is currently destroying and who has not been personally affected. “This is Neil’s world and we just live in it.”
AP Agency.
GML
