Neil, a boisterous young elephant seal, left Tasmania this week without waving a flipper, leaving behind a legion of fans. And there’s also the question of what will happen when he gets even bigger.
When Rebecca Thomson heard Neil was back in town in June, she rushed to the beach to meet one of Australia’s most famous celebrities.
Then Neil started chasing her with all 2,200 pounds of fat.
“It’s like a giant slug coming at you,” laughed Thomson, who lives in Tasmania’s capital Hobart and made sure to keep a safe distance from Neil. “It was really exciting and intriguing, but certainly a little scary as well.”
All southern elephant seals come to land several times a year to breed, molt, and socialize with each other in groups of solitary animals. But while most of his colleagues do this on remote sub-Antarctic islands, Neil chooses to spend time with the humans of the Australian island nation he visits seasonally and wreaks havoc.
After chasing Thomson into the parking lot, Neil began rocking the van, which caused onlookers to laugh and the unlucky driver to pull out. Other videos show him blocking roads. Collision with a road sign. Peeking through residents’ screen doors. It happily flattens traffic cones with its bulbous body. (He has not threatened humans so far.)
His stardom grew with each visit, captivating fans around the world and even earning him a theme song. “He’s more ungovernable than ever,” read the video caption on a TikTok fan page with more than 1.7 million followers.
“He’s been in ads and local insurance ads, so he’s definitely become an icon,” Thomson said.
But authorities warned that his viral status could draw too much attention and put his safety at risk. This problem will only get worse as his size increases and his online popularity skyrockets.
Neil’s story begins in 2020, when he was born off the south-east coast of Tasmania, not far from Hobart.
This was already unusual. Most of the region’s southern elephant seals are born on uninhabited Macquarie Island, about 1,500 kilometers south of Hobart, and return to the same spot to breed and give birth, said Clive McMahon, a research ecologist at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.
However, Neil’s mother was young and inexperienced and may not have been able to return to Macquarie Island in time. She was ready to give birth and the beaches of Tasmania were just around the corner, so Neil flew out.
Elephant seals “return to where they were born, so Neil is doing exactly what we would expect a good elephant seal to do… he just happens to be doing normal things in a strange place,” said Mr McMahon, who also lives in Hobart.
According to Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE Tas), as far as scientists are aware, only a handful of southern elephant seals have survived in Tasmania in the past 40 years. Residents of Tasmania’s southern coastal towns now see Neil on the beach several times a year, where he is legally protected as an endangered species.
There is a molting season in December and January, when seals shed their old fur and outer layers of skin. The breeding season occurs from September to November. and the mysterious “mid-year harvest” that scientists still don’t fully understand.
During Tasmania’s winter season, which runs from April to August, elephant seals gather and interact with each other, especially young males, who fight and spar with each other. Elephant seals are polygynous and have harems, with the strongest male seals able to breed with dozens and up to 100 female seals. Mr McMahon said the withdrawal period was an opportunity for young males to “learn the behaviors they need when they start competing”.
But sadly, there are no other young male seals in Hobart’s residential areas to practice chest-struck and sparring.
“Poor old Neil…’plays’ with big bollards, traffic cones, maybe cars, and all sorts of other things,” McMahon said.
To locals, Neil is a cross between celebrity, state mascot and local troublemaker, and Tasmanians are “very protective of Neil,” said Hobart-based marine and Antarctic ecologist Sophia Woelske.
“Everyone loves him,” she added. “If you talk to a random Tasmanian on the street, they’ll know Neil the Seal.”
Fortzke began her PhD on elephant seals in 2021, the year Neal became widely known. As such, it feels like his growth in both size and fame is being tracked in parallel with her degree in conspecifics. She makes it a point to meet him twice a year when he comes to town.
“I can be emotional and I often talk to him when I see him. I included a photo in my dissertation because it was important to me,” she said.
Part of that reverence comes from the public’s high awareness of Tasmania’s wildlife and conservation, which is home to many endemic species found nowhere else in the world. While Australians may be used to seeing other types of seals on our shores, such as fur seals and leopard seals, Neil’s species is less common, which makes him even more appealing.
But what his future holds is an open question.
In the best-case scenario, experts say it could end up on Macquarie Island, where it could find a colony and have the chance to breed with other seals. But he doesn’t know how to find females, and tracking data shows he’s never gone that far south. That means they will likely spend the rest of their lives alone on the Tasmanian coast, roaming asphalt roads and beaches in search of females.
That could create potential problems for the town, and for Neil himself.
Despite repeated calls from authorities for the public to stay away from Neil, thousands of people showed up to see him during the most recent evacuation in June, NRE Tas wildlife biologist Sam Tamman said in an interview with CNN affiliate ABC Radio.
Crowding poses a real danger, with NRE Tas warning in a statement that “even small movements of large wild animals can cause serious injuries.” Southern elephant seals are the largest seal species on Earth, with adult males reaching up to 8,000 pounds and 5 meters (16 feet) long, sometimes as large as a pickup truck.
Tanman pointed to the tragic end of Freya, a friendly walrus who went viral after climbing onto a small boat to sunbathe in the Oslo Fjord in 2022. The Norwegian government ultimately euthanized Freya because it deemed her a threat to human safety, with people getting dangerously close to her to take photos underwater and throwing things at her, despite warnings from authorities to stay away.
Late one night, authorities shot and killed Freya while she was on a boat in the marina. The decision sparked widespread public outrage, both at the Norwegian government and at the spectators who had ignored official warnings in their search for Freya.
Although euthanasia is not the approach that NREtas intends to take, Tamman stressed that the public needs to work together to keep themselves and Neil safe. This means don’t approach Neil to take a selfie or force any interaction with him. According to the ABC, NRE Tas has put in place 24/7 security while Neil is on shore.
More than 60,000 people have signed an online petition calling on authorities to implement Neil’s “non-lethal management plan”. This includes “restricted areas” that keep tourists and non-residents away from his favorite habitat.
Still, the town must prepare for a future in which Neal could be three times its current size and flatter than a traffic cone.
“As a community, we’re going to have to adapt,” McMahon said. “The infrastructure we’ve built is not designed to withstand the impact of a 1,000-kilogram animal…We’re going to have to rethink some things.”
