Gaston the Sea Lion - Prague, Czech Republic - Animal Memorials on Waymarking.com

In August 2002, when whole central Europe was suffering from unusually strong floods, low parts of Prague, including the zoological garden, were flooded by the Vltava river. Since the management had originally been told by authorities to expect only mild flood, and only at the last moment had they realized that they needed to evacuate most of the animals, all rescue work was done in great haste and crucial decisions, about which animals to save first, had to be taken. The keepers focused on rescuing non-swimmer animals, such as wild beasts or gorillas, and decided to leave four adult sea lions in their pool, only evacuating a three-month-old Meloun.
Despite the flooding, the sea lions continued swimming around their known territory. The glass barrier of their pool and the artificial rock had disappeared under water, but everything seemed to go well until the morning on August 14. The outlook foot bridge on the east side of the pool broke loose then and barred the sea lions’ way. The scared animals scattered.
The keepers gradually managed to find and recapture the three females, but the only male, Gaston, was still evading his pursuers. Although stressed out by the disappearance of his home and his partners and lack of food, he miraculously got as far as Decin without apparent problems. The staff of the local zoo tried to catch him there, but it is practically impossible to capture a healthy sea lion in the water.
Gaston eventually crossed the border and reached Lutterstadt near Dresden, where he was caught by German rescuers on August 19. Completely exhausted and infected from dirty flood water, he died during the transport back to Prague. The media had covered his 300 km long journey since the beginning and, in this way, Gaston has become a symbolic victim of the floods.

The statue by Veronika Richterova was dedicated on November 16, 2005.

Type of Memorial: statue Type of Animal: wild animal

Visit Instructions:
Proof of visit is required. The easiest proof is a gps photo of the memorial. GPS photos will always be acceptable proof. Individual waymarks may ask for an alternative type of proof of visit.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   09/27/2023 MTFK.papua visited it 05/10/2021 Ramonda_ visited it 06/06/2020 JeanPierre12 visited it 05/21/2015 Cimrman visited it 04/21/2015 pet@s visited it 04/01/2015 penkavky visited it 02/09/2015 LuLu team visited it 06/22/2014 SirRonBraun visited it 04/29/2013 biylda visited it 11/17/2012 KayTee10 visited it 09/02/2012 castorka visited it 08/26/2012 taxoft visited it 08/10/2012 puczmeloun visited it 07/24/2012 hanz23 visited it 07/06/2011 palcak visited it 05/08/2011 marek007 visited it 04/30/2011 ToRo61 visited it 04/02/2011 Blogi visited it 10/13/2010 Sobikovi visited it 02/21/2010 M+B visited it

View all visits/logs