Replacement for Marine Animal Shelter to Open
The owner of Sea World, who last year closed the Marineland theme park in Rancho Palos Verdes--and with it a shelter for injured and stranded marine mammals--will open a new shelter at Dockweiler State Beach in mid-April.
The shelter, which will house seals and sea lions until they can be transported to Sea World in San Diego for treatment, will operate until a permanent facility is built on land owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District in San Pedro.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, the publishing firm and parent company of Sea World, is financing the permanent facility, which is still in the planning stages.
Since Marineland closed in February, 1987, injured marine mammals that turn up along the Los Angeles County coastline have been sent to seven animal shelters throughout the county. But officials say those shelters were designed for dogs and cats, not seals and sea lions.
The temporary shelter at Dockweiler will be in a maintenance compound that belongs to the county Department of Beaches and Harbors and will not be open to the public, said Sea World Vice President Jim Antrim.
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