Photo: RJ LaMendola // Facebook
Upon hearing about a surfer having an animal encounter, one usually pictures a shark. However, Oxnard surfer RJ LaMendola recently found out that they are not the only ocean creatures capable of violence. While surfing off the coast of Oxnard, California, he was pursued, attacked and bitten by a sea lion. It wasn an encounter sent him to the hospital and left him “shaken to the core.”
LaMendola described the incident on a post to Facebook. “It started as an ordinary session, just me and my board, about 150 yards from the shore, riding the waves in solitude,” he wrote. “The ocean was calm, the rhythm of the swells familiar—until, out of nowhere, a sea lion erupted from the water, hurtling toward me at full speed. Its mouth gaped wide, teeth flashing, and its eyes locked onto me with an unsettling ferocity. My heart lurched as I instinctively yanked my board to the side, paddling frantically to evade it as it barreled forward, intent on crashing into me.”
He goes on to describe how, after the initial charge, he made a beeline for the shore. The animal continued to give chase, though. Before LaMendola could reach safety, the sea lion bit him on the left buttock. The bite wrenched him from his board, but he managed to get back on and make his way to shore – all the while still being pursued. Afterwards, he drove himself to the emergency room.
“I don’t know how to describe the fear that gripped me in that moment,” he described. “So far from shore, so helpless, staring into the face of this creature that looked like nothing I’d ever seen—its expression was feral, almost demonic, devoid of the curiosity or playfulness I’d always associated with sea lions.”
Sea lion bites are extremely rare, making the encounter especially shocking. However, there is a possible explanation for LaMendola’s encounter: It has been theorized that the animal’s behavior was caused by a toxic algae bloom affecting the area.
When the algae pseudo-nitzschia blooms, it can produce a neurotoxin known as domoic acid. When animals become poisoned by domoic acid, they can then exhibit erratic behavior. These blooms have become more and more frequent off the coast of California, due to anthropogenic climate change.”These blooms, they used to happen every so often — maybe four to seven years. But now we’re seeing an increase,” Dave Bader, a marine biologist at Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, told ABC 7.
