Terrified Sea Lion Jumps on Tiny Boat to Escape Hunting Orca

A terrified sea lion jumped onto a tiny fishing boat to escape from a group of orcas in British Columbia, Canada.

A small boat had been floating off Pedder Bay, Vancouver Island, when the sea lion leaped from the water, CTV News reported.

Orcas were spotted on the hunt for sea lions by whale watching company the Prince of Whales, just moments before. The sea lion nearly caused the boat to flip over.

Orcas, or killer whales, are known for feasting on sea lions and seals. The apex predators have fearsome hunting techniques. Scientists have even observed them playing with their prey by throwing it to each other before killing it.

Whale watching boat operator Mark Malleson saw the incident happen and captured it on film, which can be seen here. He told CTV that he had tried to warn the people who were in the small boat before the incident occurred.

Malleson said that as the orca passed by the boat, there had obviously been a sea lion nearby who "got a look at the killer whales."

"And it panicked. [...] It did one jump and kind of landed on the side of boat and then it did a second one, which actually flipped the boat up on its side and I thought they'd capsized for sure but it righted itself," he told the news outlet. "The sea lion ended up back in the water and now they're half full of water trying to motor."

Malleson made sure to keep an eye on the smaller vessel to ensure the boaters' safety. After a while the boaters appeared fine.

The whale watching operator said the sea lion had been a huge male.

"It must have been 700 or 800 pounds...If that animal had landed in the boat, somebody could have gotten seriously hurt, just from the sheer size or from the teeth," he told CTV.

The transient killer whale population in British Colombia has been thriving in recent years. In 2021, whale researchers said a record-breaking number of orcas were spotted in the area. Transient orcas, unlike the endangered southern resident population, feast mostly on sea lions and seals. The prey is abundant in the area. British Columbia is home to five different species of seals and sea lions.

It isn't the first time seals and sea lions have jumped onto vessels in desperate attempts to escape the predators.

"As a commercial operator we do not want to interfere with a hunt,"Malleson told CTV. "If there's a hunt going on, we need to stay well clear of the hunt so it doesn't allow the seal or pinniped – seal or sea lion – to get to the boat because I have seen it before where they will get on the back of a boat."

Newsweek has contacted the Prince of Whales.