{"id":268903,"date":"2011-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/whats-his-story-ucsd-professor-has-close-encounters-of-the-pinniped-kind\/"},"modified":"2011-03-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T07:00:00","slug":"whats-his-story-ucsd-professor-has-close-encounters-of-the-pinniped-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/whats-his-story-ucsd-professor-has-close-encounters-of-the-pinniped-kind\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s his story: UCSD professor has close encounters of the pinniped kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Mike Willoughby. The University of California, San Diego economics professor moved to La Jolla in 1989 and he\u2019s taken daily swims at the La Jolla Cove ever since. Besides the fact that he likes the cold water and it\u2019s good for his knees, there\u2019s also something he has enjoyed over the years \u2014 the regular interaction with the seals. Twenty years ago, he said, the seals were more people friendly \u2014 “A seal could swim up to your child,” he said. But in the last few weeks, he said they\u2019ve come around again. Last week La Jolla Village News photographer Jim Grant saw Willoughby enter the water south of the Children\u2019s Pool and almost instantly attract a group of seals. They started to follow Willoughby, and when he extended his hand, one seal came right up to him, closed its eyes and let Willoughby scratch its chin. “I don\u2019t go out of my way to touch them, but when they come up I extend my hand and they get excited,” said Willoughby. “They like their chin to be touched, similar to a dog. They reach out and take a hold of my hand with their flippers and turn their body around, like saying \u2018Scratch me right there on my back.\u2019” Willoughby said he thinks the regularity of his schedule is what has made the seals so comfortable with him. He always swims around 10:30 a.m., and he always enters the water slowly with his back turned to the seals. He said they usually linger about three to four feet behind him while he swims his course. But just like any mammals, contact with seals can be dangerous \u2014 in addition to being prohibited in the Children\u2019s Pool. Willoughby also has 20 years of experience interacting with the seals, and he doesn\u2019t recommend that others do it. “There are reports of people being bitten or scratched by seals. So far the only concern I have is when three or four of them get close, they reach out and try to hang on to you \u2014 and they have serious claws in those flippers.”