Dead Sea Lions Spark Investigation

Three dead sea lions washed ashore in the Huntington Beach area Wednesday, bringing to seven the number of marine mammals that have turned up dead on area beaches in the past week. Federal officials said they are investigating the unexplained deaths.

“This many deaths in a short period of time is unusual,” said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Marine Fisheries Service office in Los Angeles, which is conducting an investigation. “We don’t know if these sea lions were shot, caught by fishermen or died of diseases,” he said.

“We’re looking into it and trying to see if this trend will continue.”

Lifeguards said all of the carcasses were badly decomposed, making it impossible to determine whether they had been shot or physically injured. The carcasses were routinely buried by beach maintenance workers, they said.

Lifeguard stations at other Orange County beaches reported no sightings of dead sea lions within the past week.

While not an endangered species, sea lions are protected by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, Cordaro said. As a general rule, it is against the law for individuals to shoot at, try to catch or pick up sea lions.

“There are very limited circumstances in which they can be killed by commercial fishermen,” Cordaro said. “Fishermen are supposed to try to scare off sea lions from their catch and only after all else fails and only if their catch is threatened may they take action against the sea lions.”

According to Huntington City Beach Lifeguard Supervisor Mike Beuerlein, two dead sea lions were found Wednesday at 9:50 a.m. and 10:46 a.m. about 2 miles north of the Huntington Beach pier. The third washed ashore about 1:15 p.m. about 50 yards south of the pier, he said.

Four other dead sea lions had been found in the past week on area beaches, three on Huntington City Beach shores, lifeguards said, and another was found nearby on Bolsa Chica State Beach.

Judi Jones, director of operations at Friends of the Sea Lion Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, said it is highly unusual for seven dead sea lions to have washed ashore in Huntington Beach within 1 week.

“This definitely worries me,” Jones said Wednesday. “(Why) that makes this very unusual is that all of the sea lions have come ashore dead. They haven’t just swum ashore sick and then died.”

Jones said she suspects some of the sea lions were shot “by macho types out in boats,” adding, “I think there is probably a lot more of this going on than we know about. I think (there are) some bodies of sea lions killed that may wash out to sea and the deaths are never known.”

Jones said she knew of only one similar incident in Orange County in recent days. A dead sea lion washed ashore at Crescent Bay in the Laguna Beach area about a month ago, she said.