WATCH VIDEO: Elephant seal makes way through streets of town in Chile

RESIDENTS of the town of Puerto Cisnes, in Chile, received a massive surprise on  Tuesday, October 6, when they saw a huge elephant seal lumbering through their streets.

The animal, which was very disoriented, appeared in a residential area of ​​the town just after the curfew the town has imposed for Covid.

However, the videos recorded by the residents quickly surfaced and went viral on social networks.

In the videos, the elephant seal is seen crawling through the streets aimlessly. According to eyewitness accounts, the animal moved for about ten blocks through the area considered the largest urban centre of Puerto Cisnes, located north of the Aysén region, more than 1,500 kilometres south of the capital, Santiago.

URGENTE |La autoridad maritima @Armada_Chile se hace presente en conjunto a pobladores de Pto Cisnes intentan dirigir a elefante marino devuelta al mar en la region de #Aysen pic.twitter.com/xM248JskrF

— X (@EarthquakeChil1) October 6, 2020

The residents alerted the police who, in turn, notified the Chilean Nav. Fifty people participated in the rescue of the animal, a job that took many hours, but ended with a happy ending for the elephant seal, which was able to return safely to the sea.

In order to return him to his home, he surrounded the elephant with a plastic net with in the hope the animal would walk towards it.

Sergeant José Muñoz, from the Chilean Navy, explained to the local media said, “I want to thank the community for the great support. We are going to be making constant patrols so that no more get back into town and any accident occurs.”

The elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) can measure up to six metres and weigh up to four tons, in the case of males, while females do not exceed three metres long and weigh a ton. It is one of the largest marine animals, whose world population reaches 650 thousand individuals, most of which live near the coast of countries near the Antarctic continent.

Sea elephants are a very common species in southern Chile. What is not so normal, of course, is to see them walking through the streets. In fact, this is the first time that a specimen of this type has been observed captured outside its natural habitat.

However, in recent weeks, and due to quarantines and the night curfew, there have been visits from other animals, such as cougars, walking through urban areas of the country.

We hope you enjoyed this article “WATCH VIDEO: Elephant seal makes way through streets of town in Chile”.

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