09 Jul Neil, What Are You Doing?
Neil is back.
Those three words ripple through Seven Mile Beach, Tasmania.
The people who live there know exactly what’s coming.
Wildlife officers make a plan. Barriers are hauled into place. People are reminded to keep their distance.
It’s Neil, a five-year-old southern elephant seal weighing nearly 2,200 pounds who has become a familiar visitor to Seven Mile Beach.
He emerges from the water and immediately crushes the brand-new sign reminding people to watch for elephant seals.
He climbs onto the hood of a parked car. The metal buckles beneath his weight, the car alarm blaring through the neighborhood.
He leans against fences until they collapse. He stretches out across someone’s front steps, making it impossible to leave the house. Tired from such a full day, he smashes through a barrier put up to keep him off the road, wanders into the middle of a busy street, falls sound asleep, and brings traffic to a standstill. Cars back up. People wait. Wildlife officers launch Operation Heavy Sleeper, rerouting traffic until Neil eventually decides his nap is over.
The news can barely keep up.
Neil blocks another road.
Neil crushes another car.
Neil flattens the new elephant seal sign.
For the people living in Seven Mile Beach, Neil’s visits have real consequences. Cars are dented. Roads close. Appointments are missed while traffic waits for a sleeping elephant seal to wake up.
Despite the disruption, Neil has become remarkably well loved.
The headlines affectionately introduce him as a menace, a troublemaker, even a bad boy.
The scientists tell a different story.
The destruction is real. But describing behavior isn’t the same thing as understanding it.
Young elephant seals spend years pushing, shoving, and sparring as they prepare for adulthood. Without other young males nearby, Neil improvises. Traffic signs become sparring partners. Researchers believe pressing himself against cars and fences recreates the reassuring weight of the tightly packed seal piles where elephant seals normally sleep. Even those booming calls echoing through the neighborhood are simply part of growing up as an elephant seal.
We’re quick to stop there with people too.
We describe people as resistant, difficult, defensive, unmotivated, or avoidant. Those labels describe what we see. They tell us much less about what the behavior is accomplishing for the person. It may be protecting against disappointment, preserving a sense of autonomy, creating distance when emotions feel overwhelming, or offering relief from fear, uncertainty, shame, or grief, even if only for a moment.
Understanding behavior doesn’t erase consequences. Neil still flattened the brand-new sign. The car still needed a new hood. Traffic still came to a standstill while a 2,200-pound elephant seal finished his nap.
Yet when we understand behavior differently, we often respond differently too.
Neil is giving Seven Mile Beach plenty to talk about.
The scientists are inviting us to see behavior differently.
Behavior is always telling us a story.