The beloved sea lion was allegedly shot and killed in 1914, though some locals claimed they saw the animal years later. Known to fraternize with people at the edge of the water, Old Ben often begged for food and was said to be recognizable by the white spot and bump on his head. Salisbury, at least, who told The Oregonian that the animal’s description “corresponds in nearly every particular with that of Big Ben.” That was the opinion of renowned big game hunter Capt. Joe was also thought to be Southern California’s famed Old Ben or Big Ben, a sea lion that was known to haunt the beaches of Avalon on Catalina Island. While children marveled at Joe, adults were hungry for more information.ĭewey, who had captured the sea lion in the first place, declared that Joe was female, contrary to initial assumptions, though others maintained that it was male. “If one had stumbled and fallen too close, I do not like to think what might have happened.” “A number of children stood or walked around within arm’s length of the helpless beast,” Hoy said. He determined that the sea lion was sick (explaining why it couldn’t move very far and wasn’t returning to the ocean) and a danger to the people who had gathered, he told The Oregonian. Hoy, Oregon’s master fish warden at the time, visited the sea lion that Sunday, where he saw huge numbers of people crowding around it, primarily kids. Each morning, locals would round the sea lion up and take it back to the pen, where crowds of people had begun to gather. One historical document speaks of Joe scaling picket fences and winding up in somebody’s house or on their front porch, taking care not to crush flowerpots or gardens.
#White lion images free#
“Monday the people of Nelscott will escort him safely back to the ocean.”Īccording to a detailed account by the staff of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, who dug through local records in Lincoln City, the sea lion broke free of its enclosure each night and wandered the streets of Nelscott before breaking into somebody’s home. “The residents of Nelscott, accustomed to watching the heads of sea lions bobbing about in the ocean, never before have been honored with a visit from one on their very own beach,” The Oregonian reported at the time. A team of men then dragged the sea lion into town, where they built a pen to contain it over the weekend.
Dewey, who lassoed the pinniped and posed for a photo, according to articles from The Oregonian at the time and historical documents kept in Lincoln City. On Friday, March 24, 1933, three decades before Lincoln City would be incorporated, a large “battle-scarred” sea lion came ashore at the small community of Nelscott, which is about a mile north of where Tiffany was found. Nearly a century earlier, that town belonged to Joe.Īuthorities in Lincoln City spent Thanksgiving weekend trying to corral a pinniped they nicknamed Tiffany, a roving sea lion that came ashore from the Siletz River, eliciting memories of the town’s previously famous sea lion. Tiffany isn’t the first sea lion to hit the streets of Lincoln City.
0 kommentar(er)
