[imagesource: NSRI]

Cape fur seals are not aggressive animals.

That’s the sentiment stressed by 50-year-old Jerome Petersen, who has been diving with the species for more than 30 years in and around Cape Town.

However, sometimes an animal goes rogue, and that appears to be the case with a seal that attacked Petersen and two other divers on Sunday at a popular Cape Town spearfishing reef in False Bay.

Having caught a glimpse of its spotted underbelly, Petersen believes they were actually attacked by a leopard seal.

In recent months, leopard seals have been spotted around Cape Town, vast distances from their usual range in Antarctica.

He described the ordeal to TimesLIVE:

Petersen had almost given up hope. Still 200m from shore, trailing blood from numerous bites inflicted by a vicious seal, he realised the animal was trying to drown him.

“At that point I just didn’t care if it continued biting me… I thought if this is tickets I’m just going to relax into it. It had an angry look, a crazy look. I allowed the thing to take me and start pulling me out to sea.”

…“I never panicked ever. I went through the processes — I had a job to do and that was get back to the beach. I had to conserve my energy because I knew how long the swim back was. There was no fear.”

It definitely helped that one of his fellow divers, Cameron Vannithing, works with the NSRI as a rescue diver.

The two, along with Josua Joubert, positioned themselves back to back in the water.

Speaking to CapeTalk, Petersen recounted the relentless nature of the attacks:

“…the seal came in and grabbed on the end of my speargun and started to try and rip the gun out of my hand.”

“I held onto that gun as long as I could and then what the seal did was it wouldn’t let go so I hit it until it released it. It then swam around the back of us and grabbed Josh’s fin and ripped the fin off his…feet.”

“The seal almost singled me out and it went for me and eventually got the gun out of my hand and ripped the fin off my foot and snapped the other fin in half with a bite.”

“At one point I thought this was tickets. This is the end. But I think what saved me is that I am fit.”

The attacks continued during the 30 minutes it took to swim back to shore, even as Petersen climbed onto some rocks.

Witnesses had already contacted the NSRI, and the divers were treated by CMR paramedics.

The NSRI also managed to recover some of their equipment which was still floating out at sea.

Local divers said the attack was unlike the Cape fur seal, better known for playful interactions than aggressive behaviour…

Dr Tess Gridley, Stellenbosch University senior lecturer and co-director of marine science research group Sea Search, said several leopard seals had been spotted in Western Cape waters in recent months, and one elephant seal — also predominantly an Antarctic species — is currently resident on Duiker Island near Hout Bay.

Image: Simon Elwen/Sea Search

“If you do have a leopard seal in South African waters then it is effectively lost,” Gridley said. “It may well be a juvenile. It may be hungry and disorientated, and in that context it is feasible that it would interact with humans in that (aggressive) way. Unfortunately,” she said.

Understandably, Petersen says he won’t be getting back in the water until he knows the leopard seal is no longer around, adding that he feels “very strongly” that people should stay out of the area.

You can listen to his full interview with CapeTalk’s Pippa Hudson below:

[sources:timeslive&capetalk]