Don’t Touch : Beached Baby Seals Cuddly, but They’ll Bite

Word’s out along the coast from Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach: Keep your hands off the pinniped pups.

Dozens of newly born elephant seals and harbor seals bred on the Channel Islands have washed up on Southland beaches during the past several weeks, marking the opening of what marine biologists describe as the annual pinniped stranding season.

The wild pups, some just weeks old and not yet versed in the ways of the sea, flop up on area beaches in search of food, rest or a missing mother. Many are dehydrated, undernourished or infested with parasites. Some are close to death.

“Yes, they look cute and cuddly, but they are wild animals,” said Frank Turner, an official with the Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control Center in Agoura Hills. “People should never touch wildlife. They can be dangerous--especially when they feel threatened.”

Bites Reported Every Year

Indeed, several bites by pinnipeds--a group that include seals, walruses and other aquatic mammals with flippers--are reported every year in Southern California to local, state and federal officials by fishermen, animal control officers, lifeguards and inquisitive sunbathers.

Last year, a boy was bitten in the face by a California sea lion near Ventura. The year before, a girl suffered a severe bite to her abdomen when she tried to pet a distressed sea lion at Zuma Beach.

In less than a week early this month, four orphan elephant seal pups washed ashore near the Strand in Manhattan Beach. The wide-eyed waifs inspired a flood of phone calls to the city’s animal control office, which in turn prompted a stern warning to concerned residents to look but not to touch.

“Part of our job is to protect the people, too,” said Art Yaskin, a Manhattan Beach animal control officer. “No matter how cuddly the seals may look, when they bite it does hurt and there is a big chance of infection. They have microorganisms on their skin that can enter our bodies, too.”

Recommended Actions

Marine biologists and animal control officials recommend that people who spot a stranded pinniped follow several guidelines:

- First, do not touch, tease or threaten the animal.

- Second, identify the type of pinniped, or if you are not familiar with the animals, make a mental note of what it looks like (does it have ears, how big is it, what color is it) and whether it appears to be dehydrated or injured.

- Third, contact a lifeguard, a police officer or a municipal or county animal control office and be prepared to give as much information as possible about the appearance of the animal and its location.

- Fourth, keep pets and small children away from the animal. Many healthy pinnipeds lounge on beaches for more than 24 hours before returning to the ocean.

Protected by Law

Warnings about pinnipeds are not based solely on the danger that the normally innocuous creatures can pose to curious humans. Federal law protects the marine mammals from the human hand--even the most well-intentioned. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 prohibits anyone from disturbing, moving or even touching pinnipeds without authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Severe violations of the act can result in imprisonment and civil penalties as high as $10,000.

“A lot of animals come into the shore dead or in need of help,” said Sheridan Stone, a wildlife biologist who heads the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network for the National Marine Fisheries Service on Terminal Island. “But there are a whole group of animals that come in and rest and then go back out.”

Stone said that residents and beachgoers sometimes are so distraught when they spot a beached pinniped that they act irrationally and actually do more harm than good to the pups.

Not All Orphans

“People see tiny harbor seals on the beach and pick them up and bring them in thinking that they are orphans,” he said. “The pups are often only a few weeks old, are still with their mothers, but are merely resting. Once separated from their mothers, most of them end up dying.”

While misguided animal lovers are rarely prosecuted under the federal act, the tragic incidents underscore the need to educate the public about the pinnipeds’ right to sunbathe alongside humans, Stone said.

In an effort to increase public awareness of the issue, the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network provides municipalities and animal control offices with signs to post near a stranded animal. The signs warn beachgoers that the animals are protected by federal law and that violators face stiff penalties.

Beginning this summer, the network will begin distributing posters donated by the Cousteau Society that list phone numbers people can call when they spot a distressed animal. Stone said the posters will be given to lifeguards, beachside restaurants, hot dog stands--anyone who will take them.

Educating the Public

“It is an education problem,” Stone said. “We are trying to encourage common sense.”

Pinniped enthusiasts all along the Southern California coastline have spotted several dozen elephant seal and harbor seal pups onshore this year, animal control officials said. Twenty-six of those pups were deemed either lost or ill enough to be taken to the Marine Animal Care Center, a rescue facility financed by Union Oil at Marineland in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Marineland treats about 200 pinnipeds--primarily elephant seals, harbor seals and California sea lions--each year. About two-thirds of the animals survive, and many of them are returned to the sea or taken to zoos and aquariums around the world. During unusually harsh and stormy years, the center has provided refuge to as many as 600 injured or orphaned pups.

At this time of year, most of the patients at Marineland are undernourished, dehydrated elephant seals that were separated from their mothers before learning how to hunt for food. In the coming months, as the elephant seal population matures, they will gradually be outnumbered by orphaned sea lions, said Brad Andrews, general curator at Marineland.

Taught to Compete

Typically, the elephant seals and other stranded pinnipeds are tube-fed a water and fish mixture when they first arrive at the center. As they are gradually nursed to health in semi-private kennels, the pups are force-fed dead fish and eventually required to fight with other animals for live food in a community tank.

While efforts at Marineland and other rescue operations are generally praised by the public and environmentalists, the practice of nursing nature’s castaways has been debated by some wildlife and marine biologists.

John Scholl, marine biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach, said he and some of his colleagues question the wisdom of releasing recuperated pinnipeds into the ocean because some may be genetically inferior.

“I don’t know if we know enough about the gene makeup of these animals to let them back into the gene pool,” he said. “It also bothers me that so many of those that are released have adapted to man so much.”

Feeding Off Fishing Line

Scholl said he was in San Diego last week when a fisherman caught a harbor seal taking mackerel off his fishing line. It was later discovered that the seal had a tag showing that it had once been treated at a rescue center, he said.

“There is a certain responsibility to try and help these animals,” he said. “But many of them don’t know how to hunt for food. That is fine, but they should be kept in aquariums.”

While they do not destroy pinnipeds unless absolutely necessary, Marineland officials said they do not release the animals into the ocean unless they can live on their own.

Besides, with 80,000 elephant seals, 75,000 California sea lions and 4,000 harbor seals in the waters off Southern California, the several hundred animals rescued by operations like Marineland pose no great threat to the overall populations, the officials said.