The seal that brought Dromana to a standstill
“I can’t park there, man.”
It’s the classic online prank on the driver of any vehicle found in a ditch, a dangerous car area or – in the case of Friday afternoons on the Mornington Peninsula – in the going lane of Point Nepean Road.
But the driver was definitely not a driver. As red and blue lights shone from a nearby divisional van, a seal believed to be a regular, whom locals call Sammy, sunbathed peacefully.
“Oh, look at him, he’s resting,” said a giggling passenger as he passed the animal in footage later posted on social media.
“I can’t park there” seemed like an obligatory joke in the comments. And a lot of painful clichés. “It took months but [they] they finally closed the road,” joked another.
By all accounts, Sammy appeared unaware of the low-level chaos he was causing. The lazy afternoon forced the closure of the outbound lane of Point Nepean Road in the Anthony’s Nose area near Dromana for four hours.
The Ministry of Transport reported delays of up to seven minutes due to the road being reduced to one lane.
The road where Sammy chose to start the weekend early is right next to the ocean, where there is a gap in the railings separating the bitumen from the sand.
He either climbed a small flight of stairs or waddled a few hundred meters up the small hill between the beach and the road.
Officers and witch hats formed a cordon around the seal as they waited for Victoria Zoo’s Marine Response Unit to safely return Sammy to the sea.
A Zoos Victoria spokesman said Sammy had been spotted on beaches in the southern peninsula for the past month.
Another person wrote on Facebook: “The serial is becoming a nuisance! It’s blocking the roads, now the roads!” he wrote.
Marine biologist Dr. from the University of Melbourne. Allyson O’Brien said seals had become much more common in Port Phillip Bay since becoming a protected species in the 1980s.
“It’s really unusual for a seal to find its way onto land. [mostly] “They sunbathe in groups,” he said.
“As we change our coastal habitats, coastal erosion occurs and [seals] “They won’t have their usual land habitat, so I think that’s a possible reason why we’ll have more frequent contact with seals in the future.”
Dr O’Brien warned people not to approach the seals; because seals can become aggressive if they get too close.
Sammy was finally brought into action by authorities just after noon. This byline reached out to the Marine Response Unit for comment, but they were too busy managing Sammy at the time.
