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"For Pete's sake, I'm a sea lion, not a machine!" That's how we imagine the parting words of Mike, a sea lion who recently died of sex exhaustion on an artificial beach in a zoo in Germany. At least that's the story given by zoo officials, who say that mating season can be especially taxing on bulls like Mike, who keep a harem of pretty sea lionesses.

We smell something fishy though, and it ain't ol' Mikey's lunch. What if this whole "sex exhaustion" story is just a cover-up for a deeper, sea lion-ier truth? Consider the following as other possibilities:

Jealousy
Mike had three girlfriends. If this were the Maury Povich show, don't you think one of them would have poisoned him by now? And there he is, dead. Pretty suspicious.

Bucket List
Maybe Mike had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and doing the deed with three foxy sea lions was the last thing on his list? Ever consider that?

Read more possibilities after the jump.

Jason Statham Problems
Perhaps Mike's heart had been replaced by a car battery a la "Crank" and he actually died because he stopped having sex.

Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation
What if Mike overheard all the news coverage on David Carradine, and he could no longer control his curiosity? Maybe somebody mistook his safety word as a bark of pleasure and things got out of hand.

Pure, Unadulterated Terror
Don't you think that maybe if, just at the moment Mike was reaching sea lion climax, somebody leapt out from behind a rock dressed as a great white shark, he might have actually died of fright? Great whites are the fiercest of the sea lion's natural predators, after all.

Driven to Suicide by Internet Bullying
This theory was first floated in our comments section. Mike's lifestyle certainly invited criticism, and it's happened before.

Ponzi Victim
Isn't it possible, since news travels more slowly among animals than humans, that Mike just found out he lost all of his money to Bernie Madoff, and he killed himself out of grief? He can't hurt you any more, little fella.

What other ridiculous scenarios could have been the cause of Mikey's demise?