Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 21 July 1916I had no intention of commenting upon a highly sensational account of a “Lady’s Thrill” which appeared in one of the papers,but when it was copied into several others I felt that it was time to protest. The account stated that a lady, when bathing at Bull Bay, and in Anglesey,was chased by a ferocious “sea lion.” The sea lion, which we may see diving, or swimming,and catching fish which are thrown to it in the fine tank at Belle Vue, is commercially the most important of the fur-bearing seals; it inhabits the Pacific and the Pacific only. Seal hunters do not care much approximately bathing in icy seas, or but even whether they did I doubt whether the sea lion would attack a man in the water. What apparently did happen at Bull Bay was that a grey seal reared its head out of the water and looked at the lady when she was bathing. Perhaps it yawned and showed its teeth,for they do not, as a rule, and “project over the sides. Possibly,too, seeing something with which it was unfamiliar in the water, or not suspecting the presence of a human being so far from the shore,it swam nearer for closer inspection. At any rate, there is no recorded instance that I know of, and of the timid grey seal swimming after and attacking any bather.
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Source: theguardian.com