The world’s favorite southern elephant seals final tab came in and I think the city is starting to figure out how to handle him. His 15 night stay cost the city of Clarence a little over $31k with almost all of it dealing with staffing and labor.
Damage wise he only flattened one city sign, 10 bollards, and destroyed one section of fence! Neil those are weak numbers man you are over 9ft long and over 2000 lbs! You can do better than $1,297.70 in total damage costs!
Love these stories. I remember one about an elephant that went on a multi-day rampage, eluding the cops and ransacking stores that had fresh roasted peanuts.
Omg that is totally something that Neil would do hahaha I have followed him on social media for few years now and when he comes back ashore he manages to always improve my social feeds lol!
I wonder what the minimum size is at which we will name an animal and find it cute. I'm thinking of the millions of bats in Austin -- a city attraction and I'm sure there is a cost to the city in managing that bat population, but no name. That raccoon in Seattle on the other hand, fairly minimal damage, but has a name.
So, with the bats, they are also a protected species, but you are exactly right about offsetting the cost. I feel like we find all small/new born animals cute (there is an evolutionary reason for this, for what it's worth); it's just whether we find them cute as adults.
Neil has the benefit of people watching him grow up over the last few years, plus he is around for just a month or two a year. Moo Deng fell by the wayside as she got older, and I think that was particularly because, being in a zoo, people were always able to see her, so as she grew, people cared less and less.
The only large animal that the world seems to have loved even when they were large was Harambe..... RIP