It was an unbelievable sight for onlookers at Victoria’s Ogden Point breakwater.
A man had his smartphone recording as one of the most fearsome predators in the ocean proved no match for a hungry harbour seal Wednesday.
“It was an octopus that was wrapped around something, and when I took a closer look I saw that something was a seal,” said James Ball, a creative producer for Bell Media.
Ball said he thinks he arrived at the start of the scuffle, around 11:30 a.m, and that it looked like the animals were engaged in a “slow dance” at first.
“There was a moment when [the octopus] had all its tentacles spread out and it was big,” he said. “It looked like potentially it could have taken the seal down, but it didn’t.”
The fight was anything but evenly matched, and shortly after Ball started filming the seal took a couple of big bites out of the eight-legged animal – and that was it.
“The seal tore through the octopus like a plate of sushi,” he joked.
It’s not the first time such an unusual battle has been caught on camera at Ogden Point.
A photographer witnessed and recorded virtually the exact same scene in February – with that seal also emerging victorious.
Experts say it’s not out of the ordinary for a seal to dine on a pacific octopus.
"A few years back I would have said it's unusual to capture an event like this on film, but this latest video marks at least the fourth report in the last two years at Ogden Point," said Chad Nordstrom, a research biologist with the Vancouver Aquarium.
"The breakwater and the extensive docks it protects likely make for a great home for clams, crabs, and small fish which would attract predatory octopus."
Ball said it was a first for him.
“I’ve never seen that before. But I knew, obviously, that I was watching something cool.”
