Another Dead Sea Lion Found--Toll Now 12

Another dead sea lion washed ashore in Huntington Beach on Thursday, and a federal official said the new body brings to 12 the number of the dead sea lions found in the coastal city since Saturday.

The cause of deaths still is a mystery, said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service office in Los Angeles.

“Of the 12 sea lion bodies that have been found so far, only two are suspected of having bullet wounds,” Cordaro said. “And we can’t prove that those two deaths were because of bullet wounds. It’s very hard to distinguish bullet wounds from bird bites in dead sea lions.”

Fishermen discovered the latest dead sea lion on the beach near Golden West Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, said Judi Jones, operations director of Friends of the Sea Lion Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach.

Jones believes that many of the sea lions have been killed by people in boats. “There are too many deaths occurring in too short a time and all at the same place for this to be a coincidence,” she said.

Cordaro, however, said it is possible that a sea lion disease is responsible for the deaths. He said a 1984 outbreak of a liver-kidney disease affecting sea lions killed hundreds of the mammals in California.

He said only 21 dead sea lions were found in all of Orange County in 1988, compared to 12 found in less than a week this year in Huntington Beach. Of the 21 dead sea lions in 1988, six apparently were shot to death, six died of illnesses, and nine died of unknown causes, Cordaro said.

The string of sea lion deaths in Huntington Beach was first reported to the National Marine Fisheries Service on Jan 19. Cordaro said an initial tally showed seven deaths, but that subsequent record checks turned up a total of 11 sea lion deaths since Saturday--all in the Huntington Beach area. The new sea lion body found Thursday raises the total to 12, he said.