A mother sea lion sobs as she mourns the de.ath of her cub in he.artbre.aking footage.
The footage shows the creature wailing and writhing around on the beach in San Diego while the de.ad baby lies close to mom.
The puppy is said to have arrived prematurely earlier this week. In the video, the mother is seen nuzzling her infant before lying on top of it in a frantic attempt to resuscitate it. A close-up of her face reveals tears streaming down her cheeks as she sobs over her kid.
Andrea Else Hahn, the wildlife activist who shot the video, returned to the beach the next day to find the mother had stayed with her young overnight.
‘She’s still with her baby,’ she adds in the footage. ‘She is still with her darling baby.’ All I can do is bring this to your notice, love.’
The video, which was published on Facebook, has been seen over 800,000 times.
‘We humans have a propensity to imagine that we are the only animals that grieve the de.ath of a son or daughter,’ says the post.
‘This terrible footage of a mother sea lion losing her young should serve as a wake-up message to all of us.’
