Woman sparks debate after kicking sea lion off boat into orca-infested waters in viral TikTok

A woman who was trapped on a boat with a sea lion as killer whales circled her boat has sparked debate after sharing footage of the incident on TikTok.

The TikTok account, @nutabull, that originally uploaded the videos now seems to be deleted, but the videos have been reposted several times to Twitter and Reddit.

Orcas primarily eat marine mammals including sea lions.

In the first video, the woman filmed the sea lion, which had clambered onto the boat, and said:  “You have to go, you can’t be here.

“Oh my goodness, I don’t know what to do. Where did you come from? I never even seen you out there? Where did you come from? Holy f***.”

The woman sounds panicked as she walks around her boat filming the orcas.

“I don’t know what to do, I didn’t know you were there,” she said to the seal. “You have to go honey.”

In a different video, which seems to be filmed later, she filmed the sea lion sitting at the edge of the boat and said: “You need to go, I know you’ll suffer honey but this is how the world works.”

She repeats “you have to go” several times in a panicked tone.

As she walked back towards the sea lion, she says “you got to go, I don’t have time for this” and the sea lion jumps off.

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

She then starts the boat and makes her way out of the area immediately. TMZ reports that the woman lives on Vancouver Island.

Another Twitter user replied with a video, apparently filmed by the same woman, with the comment “she hates them” along with a crying emoji. The woman filmed a group of sea lions lounging on the shore as she drove by on her boat.

She light-heartedly shouts at them to warn them to stay away from their fish and then calls them smelly.

The thread of videos on Twitter quickly went viral, with the first video being viewed over three million times.

Some people replied making fun of the sea lion, whereas others expressed their disappointment that the woman wasn’t able to save the sea lion from the killer whales:

The Twitter user who uploaded the video also shared a screenshot of a comment the original poster left when asked why she couldn’t just start the boat and go.

She said she didn’t want to risk hitting a killer whale with her propeller as they are more endangered than sea lions.

According to NOAA Fisheries, there are just 50,000 killer whales on the globe, with some species classed as endangered.

However according to WWF, sea lions are also endangered as they are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, can be victims of bycatch in fisheries, and can be struck down by disease.

Either way, we wouldn’t want to hang around too long out there on the water to find out what the orcas would do once their patience wore thin.