"THE RAPACIOUS TIZHERUK AND REPTILIAN SEALS
"The Bering Sea separates Alaska from Far East Russia, and contains a number of islands, which have been, and in some cases still are, inhabited by members of the Inuit nation. According to their traditional lore, the seas around at least two of these islands are home to a very mysterious and allegedly highly dangerous marine creature known as the tizheruk to the Inuits that once lived on tiny King Island (the entire population had resettled on the Alaskan mainland by 1970), and as the pal rai yuk to those still living on the much larger Nunivak Island.
"In his book Searching For Hidden Animals (1980), American cryptozoologist Prof. Roy P. Mackal noted that the Inuits originally inhabiting King Island had provided a detailed account of the greatly-feared tizheruk to ethnologist Dr John White, formerly of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Based upon this information, which he shared with Mackal, White revealed that only the tizheruk’s head and neck are usually observed, which rear 7-8 ft out of the water. The head is snakelike in appearance, and on the rare occasions when the tail is visible it can be seen to bear a flipper at its end.
"These animals are generally encountered in the bay areas, less frequently in the open sea, and by placing their ears against the inside of their boats the Inuits can hear them coming up for air. Moreover, if they tap against their boats, the sound often attracts these animals, their curiosity bringing them closer as they seek to discover the tapping noise’s nature—not that the Inuits make a point of attracting tizheruks, however, because they claim that these creatures will actively attack humans, and they recounted numerous episodes to White in which hunters had reputedly been killed by them.
"Mackal considered that the tizheruk was most probably a scientifically-unknown species of long-necked seal, and went on to suggest a more specific identity for it that is extremely thought-provoking. Namely, a currently-undiscovered northern counterpart of the Antarctic’s (in)famously aggressive leopard seal Hydrurga leptonyx (aka the sea leopard)."
