A huge elephant seal the size of a small automobile caused chaos in a Chilean town as it meandered through the streets before being guided back to the sea by locals.
The enormous beast was able to make its way ten blocks of a residential area in the country’s southern Patagonian region before being assisted by the locals and returning to its natural habitat.
Police and naval officials assisted residents by closing off streets leading farther inland with cars and plastic sheeting before using the same tarpaulin to guide it back to the ocean.
Other Good Samaritans threw buckets of water over the animal to keep the animal hydrated.
It was spotted again near the shore shortly before a coronavirus lockdown was imposed on the town’s 2,500 inhabitants.
‘Look at all the locals that are assisting and are using tarpaulin to encircle it,’ says Manuel Novoa, a presenter for local radio station Radio Autentica FM who caught the event on film and provided a live commentary of the rescue.
‘It’s only a few feet from the beach now. The work neighbors have completed has been incredible. They’re allowing it to rest because it spans ten blocks and must be exhausted.’
A dog was seen encouraging the crew behind the elephant seal to run faster as it sped up its belly flops along the tarmac after realizing that the water was only a few feet away.
