On Saturday, in a real-life game of Frogger, a wayward sea lion emerged with the high score. From yesterday's Chron:
Oblivious to speeding cars and trucks, a California sea lion crossed eight lanes of traffic and a concrete median on Highway 101 Saturday morning, exiting at Broadway before Burlingame police pulled him over. "Drivers were calling us, saying 'I swear I'm not drunk, but there's a sea lion in the middle of the freeway,' " said Burlingame police Cpl. Laura Terada. "There were zero accidents because of this, which is amazing." The incident happened around 7 a.m., when motorists reported the sea lion flopping westward - apparently heading from nearby San Francisco Bay across the freeway to the sleepy Peninsula suburb.
KCBS has raw video of staff from the Marine Mammal Center in Marin rescuing the 150-pound animal, sitting on a tree stump on the shoulder of the Broadway exit. The exit was shut down for two hours, according to the Mercury News. Also from the Merc:
The veterinarians would try to mend the mammal -- it was stressed, and there was apparently damage to its jaw, though police said the sea lion had not been struck by a vehicle... Jim Oswald of the Marine Mammal Center said the veterinarians would try to figure out what caused the animal to become disoriented in the first place. He said "they can do an EEG" -- a test that measures and records the electrical activity of the brain -- "and see if there are any signs of epileptic seizures. They can be indicative of toxic algae poisoning, which can disturb the brain and interfere with their navigational skills."