Dramatic video shows sea lion dragging girl underwater

A college student has startling video of a sea lion snatching a girl off a dock and yanking her into the water on Canada's West Coast.

It happened Saturday in Richmond, a Vancouver suburb. University student Michael Fujiwara tells CBC News that some people started feeding the animal breadcrumbs.

In Fujiwara's video , the sea lion pops up toward the girl as bystanders laugh. Then she sits by the pier's edge. In an instant, the massive mammal shoots up, grabs her dress and pulls her into the water as people scream.

The sea lion disappears as a man plunges into the water and helps the girl out. She doesn't appear injured and walks away with adults.

"My first reaction to the video is just how stupid some people can be to not treat wildlife with proper respect," Andrew Trites, director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit, told CBC News. "This was a male California sea lion. They are huge animals. They are not circus performers. They're not trained to be next to people."