Sea lion blocks roadway on Olympic Peninsula

Sea lions don’t go to driving school. If they did, drivers in Cosmopolis probably wouldn’t have had to slow down in the rain to avoid a sea lion parked in the middle of the road.

The blubbery obstacle was reported to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife around 2 p.m. Thursday near Blue Slough Road outside Cosmopolis, a small town in Grays Harbor County hugging the Chehalis River near Aberdeen, according to spokesperson Bridget Mire.

Cosmopolis police snapped some photos, warning drivers to “use caution” on the road. The sea lion’s eyes were closed in one picture as it felt the rain fall on its upturned fuzzy face, probably singing Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” to itself.

Wednesday and Thursday had been wet days for the Washington coast. Grays Harbor was under a coastal flood advisory while the watery combo of high tides and a stormy downpour threatened to flood roads, parks and parking lots.

Sea lions temporarily “haul out” of the water to rest after foraging, regulate body temperature, avoid predators, molt or shed their fur or between migrations, among other reasons, according to the Marine Mammal Center.

Instead of arresting the slippery creature for jaywalking (jayflopping?), the police department gave the sea lion a uniform and utility belt equipped with its own pair of handcuffs.

Well, via Photoshop, that is. The police department had some more fun at the keyboard, editing the sea creature to look like a road worker stopping traffic, and like he had made it safely home to a shoreside cottage.

WDFW enforcement and an agent from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “hazed” the hefty hazard out of the roadway back into the river, Mire said. (“Hazing” means making the creature uncomfortable enough to move, by the way.)

It’s not unheard of for sea lions to waddle their way out of the water. Cowlitz County dealt with its own road-blocking sea creature in 2020, and Wahkiakum County in 2021. So, surprisingly, sea lions aren’t a road hazard you shouldn’t be looking out for.

In case you thought approaching such an imposing sea creature to snap a selfie was a watertight idea, Mire reminded that sea lions do pose a threat of harming humans and damaging property – so do not disturb them. Instead, report wayward sea lions to WDFW.