Navy-Trained Sea Lion Finds Way Back Home
A 150-pound California sea lion that became separated from its Navy trainers in heavy surf Monday, found its way back home a day later, Navy officials reported Wednesday.
Joel Meriwether, a spokesman for the Naval Ocean Systems Center on Point Loma, said the sea lion was being trained in open ocean just off Coronado when it became disoriented in the rough seas and swam away from its handlers.
But the sea lion turned up Tuesday night at the Navy’s Point Loma dock ready to be put into its pen. The sea lions are born in the wild and have no problem surviving if lost, Meriwether said.
Meriwether said the sea lion, unnamed and sex undetermined, was being trained for the Navy’s Quick Find program. The sea lions act as replacements for human divers and are trained to locate items at the bottom of the ocean such as dummy torpedoes. There are about six sea lions in the training program, he said.
Meriwether said that despite this sea lion’s brief misadventure they have an “excellent sense of location and direction.”
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