Resurgent Sea Lions Roil Waters : Boat Operators, Environmentalists at Odds Over Solution

It used to be that whenever sea lions or other marine mammals off the Orange County coast swarmed around a sportfishing boat, snitched bait and tangled up the lines, a skipper could take any action--including shooting to kill--to assure his customers a successful day’s outing.

But those reprisals were banned in 1972, when the animals were brought under the umbrella of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The sea lion population has grown rapidly since then, and with it a bitter dispute between California fishermen and environmentalists.

Operators of sportfishing fleets want government permission to use some means--such as harmless sonic or electronic devices--to keep sea lions from harassing their boats and driving away customers. However, animal-rights groups have opposed actions that would disturb or endanger the animals.

The dispute arose after federal officials expanded the Marine Mammals Protection Act, citing the dwindling population of sea lions, seals and other creatures. Under the law, administered by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the crews of commercial passenger fishing vessels, also known as party boats, are not allowed to harm sea lions.

“We can’t even throw a beer can at them,” complained Bill Nott, president of the Sportfishing Assn. of California, which represents 235 commercial passenger fishing vessels in Southern California.

Once the new law was in effect, it didn’t take the animals long--especially the quick-witted sea lions--to recognize good things when they saw them.

About five years ago, for example, a young sea lion clambered aboard a large vessel anchored just outside Dana Point Harbor. The boat’s sole purpose was to catch thousands of pounds of anchovies and squid, and the little animal refused to leave.

He still was on deck when the ship set sail five days later. There was irony in the situation, because the crew of commercial fishermen--who despised sea lions as relentless competitors and might have shot him before the federal law was passed--liked the animal enough to give him a name.

“We call him Freddie the Freeloader,” a crewman said at the time. “He’s OK as sea lions go--and we wish he would go.”

Elsewhere, there was less good humor. Other commercial fishermen and the operators of sportfishing fleets, for example, complained that sea lions were stealing bait, raiding the nets and, worst of all, endangering the fishermen’s livelihoods.

All the while, the sea lion population off California’s coast grew from about 20,000 to the present estimate of 75,000 to 80,000. As the numbers grew, scores of stories popped up about confrontations between humans and marine mammals along the Orange County coast.

Some were humorous, like the time in 1978 when a sea lion wandered into a rest room in a Laguna Beach cove, and a man complained to lifeguards that he “couldn’t perform” with the animal watching him.

Others were tragic. A sea lion resting on a buoy off Dana Point was shot to death in September of 1980 by two young men in a passing boat who said they did it “just for fun.”

In time, the controversy over sea lions and other marine mammals spread from the waters off California to Washington. A bitter conflict developed between environmentalists and the Sportfishing Assn., with federal and state agencies trying to satisfy both sides.

Much of the controversy focused on proposals to keep sea lions away from sportfishing boats by the use of explosives, electronic and sonic devices, and chemicals.

Nott said the sea lions, a few harbor seals and elephant seals “swarm around the boats and make it very difficult” for paying customers to catch fish. “And we’ve got to catch fish every day,” he said.

“The cost of fuel, insurance and boat maintenance is escalating, so we have to have satisfied customers. Some people have written in that they won’t go out fishing anymore until the sea lion situation is settled.”

Nott added, however, that “we’re in the final stages of getting approval of permits to use some sort of sonic or electronic devices to discourage the animals, but definitely not to hurt or kill them.”

Meanwhile, the state Department of Fish and Game has been experimenting with a chemical called lithium chloride that may discourage sea lions from hanging around the sportfishing fleets.

Doyle Hanan, a state marine biologist in San Diego, explained that “the procedure would be to lace one or two bait fish with injections of liquid lithium chloride and hang them over the side of the boat on a hookless line.”

Sea lions that ate such fish almost immediately would become nauseated and “by association with what happened, would avoid that boat and that species of fish,” he explained.

Hanan conceded that “there are concerns about this process. . . . One was whether the sea lion would go off and starve to death for fear of eating any kind of fish. But the fish we would lace with the chemical, such as a mackerel or bonito, is not on his regular diet, which is mostly anchovies and squid.

“The other concern was on the question of toxicity, of introducing yet another chemical into the ocean. But that is easily answered because lithium chloride already exists in seawater, and in some forms it has been approved for use in treating some human ailments,” he added.

Experiments with the chemical have been conducted in controlled environments like Marineland, but Hanan said he has applied for federal permits to make tests under actual conditions in the ocean, possibly in the next few months.

However, the proposed use of lithium chloride--or any device that affects the normal lives of sea mammals--raises the hackles of groups like the Friends of the Sea Lion Center in Laguna Beach.

Bill Ford, administrative director, said the chemical “may turn out to have long-term effects that could kill who knows how many sea lions.”

Over the years, the nonprofit center has employed youthful volunteers who conduct educational programs on marine life. The facility has taken in hundreds of sick and injured ocean creatures, treated them and returned them to their habitats.

Scores of these animals have suffered gunshot wounds, slashes apparently inflicted by gaff hooks, and many other painful injuries that presumably were inflicted by angry fishermen, Ford said.

The dispute continues, but meanwhile the ocean seems to be providing a solution that could reduce the bickering ashore. For unknown reasons, sea lion herds have been finding ample supplies of food and have been scavenging less and less from commercial fishing fleets.

In recent weeks, the sea has washed up only a smattering of ailing sea lions, harbor seals or elephant seals on local beaches, Ford said, adding: “We hadn’t been without a sick or injured animal for as long as a week for many years. Now we haven’t had one since September.”

At Marineland, assistant curator Scott Rutherford noted that “we took in 600 ailing animals in 1983, the year of the El Nino storms. On a normal year, we get 100. This year we’ve had a dozen or so, an all-time low.”

Sea World in San Diego had a similar report. Tom Goff, assistant curator, said an average year sees 150 animals under treatment. This year the facility has seen only 44, he said.

The meaning of the trend has many experts baffled. Dana Seagars, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, could only guess what’s going on.

“The lack of strandings . . . probably is an indication of the (good) health of the herd,” he said.

“Field reports from the big rookeries on San Nicolas and San Miguel islands show that the average weight of the (sea lion) pups is up 10% to 15% this year, a sign that there is plenty of food and no problems in getting it.”

And that, say fishing industry officials, could mean that humans and sea lions may find a way to get along after all.

Nott also noted that fishing crews have seen many sea lions around the rookeries “but not so many around the fishing fleets.”

“We’re at a loss to understand this,” he said. “Maybe nature will solve everything.”