WAIKIKI, Hawaii — A swimmer is recovering from injuries after she was attacked by a seal at a Waikiki beach in a violent confrontation that was caught on camera.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser obtained video of the unidentified woman swimming at Kaimana Beach in Waikiki. The video shows the swimmer going near a roped-off area where a Hawaiian monk seal was known to be nursing a pup.
Watch the video of the attack below. Viewer discretion is advised due to graphic footage of an animal attack.
In the video, the seal lunges at the swimmer several times. People can be heard in the background yelling for the swimmer to get out of the water, and for someone to call 911.
Witnesses at the beach told KITV that they heard Rocky, a Hawaiian monk seal, panicking and barking for her pup. After finding her pup, the mother seal charged at the nearest swimmer.
“It was a brutal attack, it was rough to watch,” Rosa Timberlake, a witness, told KITV. “At one point Rocky’s mouth got a hold of her head and she was trying to splash and get away. I could tell she was stunned.”
Rocky, tracked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as RH58, gave birth to a male pup on July 9 at Kaimana Beach. Since then, both NOAA and Hawaii Marine Animal Response have been monitoring the mother and baby.
“So I guess that’s mother’s instinct to protect her pup,” Curt Otsuka, a witness, told Hawaii News Now. “Everybody was yelling, ‘careful, careful, get away.’”
The beach has a roped-off section for the seal, with signs warning swimmers, “Do not approach seals on land or in water. Please stay behind all signs and fencing for your safety,” the Star-Advertiser reported.
In a statement to the newspaper, HMAR said, “People are again reminded that Hawaiian monk seal moms with pups are protective, can be dangerous, and have inflicted serious wounds on nearby swimmers. We continue to warn people not to engage in in-water activities when a monk seal mother with a pup are in the area and to stay at least 150 feet from mother seals with pups.”
Hawaiian monk seals are the most endangered seal species in the world, according to NOAA, with only 1,570 seals in the Hawaiian Islands.
“She was just defending her child, and this poor swimmer, my heart goes out to her, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Markus Faigle, who recorded the video of the attack, told Hawaii News Now. “But that couldn’t be in a worse place. And I filmed it because I had this really bad feeling.”
Witnesses told KITV that the swimmer was scratched up, but had no serious injuries.
HMAR officials told Hawaii News Now that the swimmer had previously been warned about the dangers of being in the area.