100 YEARS OLD AND STILL AS EXTRAORDINARY AS EVER...

MINUTES of the second day of the Extraordinary General Meeting of K-SLOTT (Keep Sea Lions Off The Tubes). The plot so far: after the first day of the EGM, absolutely no progress had been made towards reaching an agreement on a post-Brexit policy for K-Slott. The Founder and President of the organisation therefore decided to act presidentially and addressed the meeting at the start of the second day.

“Delegates and sea-lion inhibitors,” he said, “we have reached a critical moment in our history. Eight score and 17 months ago, our researchers brought forth a new realisation of the potential problems posed by sea lions. It was, if you cast your minds back, in 2002 that sea lions were shown to be capable of performing a cognitive task that had previously only been accomplished by humans and pigeons. Realising that these were precisely the two species that had been seen making deliberate journeys on London tube trains, I saw the threat immediately. It does not, after all, take many sea lions to fill a tube carriage and, unlike pigeons, they cannot take to the air at busy times. Accordingly I formed K-Slott and thanks to the efforts of all of us, not a single sea lion has been seen on a London tube since that date. [Enthusiastic applause from the hall.]

“Now, however, we are faced not only with the problem of Brexit but recent research has showing that the sea lion threat is now higher than ever. Yesterday, we heard evidence that southern sea lion males have engaged in winter sex tourism, hauling themselves out of the sea to indulge in mating behaviour on land or ice. Furthermore, I have found another two papers to bring to your attention.

“First, there was a paper last year in the journal Animal Behaviour entitled ‘Relaxed Open Mouth is a playful signal in American sea lions’. Then there was a paper, also last year, called ‘Wildlife Tourism: Underwater behavioural responses of South American sea lions to swimmers’, revealing that ‘Tourists swimming with sea lions may be exposed to potential injury’ including being bitten by the sea lion which the tourist thought he or she was playing with. ‘These sequences consisted mainly in a sea lion allowing a swimmer to touch it and then biting him/her.’

“Putting all these together, we find ourselves facing an extremely hazardous scenario. The male sea lions haul themselves out of the sea and slither their way on to a tube train in search of a bit of pinnipedial hankypanky. Tourists on the train greet the sea lion with an open-mouthed astonishment which the sea lion sees as a playful symbol so starts chatting them up and encouraging the tourist to touch them. Then it takes a bite.

“I think therefore that we have learnt two valuable lessons: that we cannot for a moment relax our vigilance; and that Brexit means Brexit and has nothing whatsoever to do with sea lions, unless the pound continues to fall, encouraging even more tourists to come here, travel by tube, and get bitten by amorous sea-lions.”

[Prolonged applause and the meeting came to an end.]