Without so much as a wave of his flipper, Neil the boisterous young elephant seal departed Tasmania this week, leaving behind a legion of fans – and questions about what happens when he gets even bigger.
When Rebecca Thomson heard that Neil was back in town in June, she had rushed to the beach to see one of the Australian state’s best-known celebrities.
Then Neil, with all his 2,200 blubbery pounds, began following her.
“It’s like this giant slug coming at you,” laughed Thomson, who lives in the Tasmanian capital Hobart, and made sure to keep a safe distance from Neil. “It was really exciting and intriguing, and yes, definitely a bit intimidating, too.”
All southern elephant seals come on land a few times a year to breed, shed their fur, and interact with each other in gatherings of the otherwise solitary animals. But while most of his peers do this on remote subantarctic islands, Neil chooses to hang out with humans in the Australian island state during his seasonal visits – and wreak havoc.
