Escaped animals

Elephant seals rest at their shoreline birthing grounds below Hearst Castle. Seals' encounters with motorists on California's Highway 1 left officials scratching their heads over how to keep the highway safe while protecting the thousands of seals that return to the site each winter to breed. The sea lions would often escape out of the fencing meant to keep them from the road. Where blubber meets the road

Elephant seals rest at their shoreline birthing grounds below Hearst Castle. Seals’ encounters with motorists on California‘s Highway 1 left officials scratching their heads over how to keep the highway safe while protecting the thousands of seals that return to the site each winter to breed. The sea lions would often escape out of the fencing meant to keep them from the road.

Where blubber meets the road  (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

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Reggie the alligator

Reggie the alligator eluded capture for almost two years while living in a Los Angeles city park. His owners decided he had grown too large to keep as a pet, so they dropped him in in Lake Machado in 2005.

Reggie managed to evade and befuddle a constant parade of would-be gator wranglers before he was finally snared with a dog-catcher’s pole in May 2007 and taken to the L.A. Zoo. Reggie’s taste for freedom was strong, however, and in August 2007 he busted out of his enclosure for a couple of hours. After he was recaptured, his pen was modified to make it harder for the gator to escape.

Reggie the alligator no longer lonely  (Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times)