Rasal, a harbor seal at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, retrieves a Cincinnati Bengals football for Senior Aquarist Dylan Salamone, indicating her pick for Super Bowl LVI. The Maritime Aquarium’s seals have correctly predicted the winners of four of the last five title games.
Rasal, a harbor seal at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, has made her pick for Super Bowl LVI and it is the Cincinnati Bengals.
For The Maritime Aquarium’s 11th annual Seal Super Bowl Pick, two branded footballs were tossed into the seal exhibit for Rasal, a 36-year-old female seal that – in her younger years – was trained by the US Navy to retrieve objects. Rasal disregarded the Los Angeles Rams football and decisively pushed the Bengals ball back to Senior Aquarist Dylan Salamone.
After gaining attention for getting their first five Super Bowl picks wrong, the Aquarium’s seals have correctly predicted the winners of four of the last five title games.
This is Rasal’s fourth time serving as the Aquarium’s pinniped pigskin prognosticator. In her one previous opportunity to pick Los Angeles in 2019, she went with Tom Brady and correctly picked the New England Patriots’ victory over the Rams.
Rasal’s pick goes against the national odds-makers, who have the Rams as a 4.5-point favorite.
Rasal is one of five harbor seals living in “Pinniped Cove,” a 160,000-gallon habitat that opened in June as the largest display in The Maritime Aquarium’s history. Her Super Bowl selection was a fun variation on enrichments and interactions between the seals and the Animal Husbandry staff, which guests can enjoy during public training demonstrations at 11:45 a.m. and 1:45 & 3:45 p.m. daily.
For more details about animals, exhibits and programs at the popular Connecticut family attraction, go to www.maritimeaquarium.org.
RECAP OF THE MARITIME AQUARIUM’S PREVIOUS SEAL SUPER BOWL PICKS:
X • Rasal picked New England in 2012. The NY Giants won 21-17.
X • Orange chose the SF 49ers in 2013. The Baltimore Ravens won 34-31.
X • Orange had the Denver Broncos in 2014. The Seattle Seahawks crushed them, 43-8.
X • Polly came off the bench in 2015 & picked the Seahawks and would have been right if not for a boneheaded Seattle play call at the goal line as time ran out. The Patriots won 28-24.
X • Orange in 2016 went for the Carolina Panthers, who were overrun by Denver 24-10.
√ • Orange selected New England in 2017 and, when the Patriots fell way behind, it looked like the seals’ perfect record of futility would be extended. But New England’s incredible fourth-quarter rally to beat Atlanta 34-28 gave the seals their first-ever correct pick.
√ • Orange jumped on the Nick Foles bandwagon in 2018 and selected the Philadelphia Eagles, who topped the Patriots 41-33.
√ • Rasal assumed the duties again in 2019 and ran the seals’ winning streak to three in a row by picking the Patriots, who beat the Rams 13-3.
X • The seals’ streak ended in 2020 as Rasal chose the 49ers, who lost to the KC Chiefs 31-20.
√ • Born in Maine and loyal to former Patriot Tom Brady, Leila proved correct with her first-ever pick last year in going with Brady & Tampa Bay as the Buccaneers smoked Kansas City 31-9.