1 Sea Lion Was Shot, 2 Died in Gill Nets, Biologists Say

Nearly 3 weeks after the carcasses of 49 California sea lions mysteriously began washing ashore on Orange County beaches, federal biologists have determined that at least one of the animals had been shot and two died in gill nets used by halibut fishermen.

In a necropsy completed Wednesday on the body of a young 350-pound male sea lion, biologists retrieved a .30-caliber bullet that had penetrated the animal’s abdomen and killed him. It was the first piece of solid evidence that any of the animals had been illegally shot, said Jim Lecky, chief of the National Marine Fisheries protected species branch.

And, in two other sea lion deaths, biologists reported that they found a net peculiar to halibut fishing wrapped around one carcass, while the neck and shoulder of another sea lion bore the markings of a halibut net, Lecky said.

From that evidence and their knowledge of coastal fisheries, federal officials now believe that most of the Orange County sea lions died after encounters with fishermen--either as they became entangled in gill nets and drowned, or were shot by squid fishermen protecting their catch from a marauding sea lion.

“We are pretty much calling a conclusion to this investigation because we are pretty sure what’s going on,” Lecky said.

Lecky said that at this point there are no witnesses, so no criminal charges are planned. He added that since the sea lion is not an endangered species and the deaths are a small percentage of the population, no special surveillances are scheduled.

But fishermen from San Clemente to San Pedro insisted that in most of the deaths fishermen were blameless.

“No gill netter is blatantly going away and killing sea lions,” said gill net fisherman John (The Turk) Emirzian, 50. “Probably several things are killing them.”

Don Hansen, a director of the California Sportfishing Assn., some of whose members hunt squid, agreed. “Most operators just don’t do that anymore (shoot sea lions to keep them away from their catch). Trouble is the public is quick to point fingers.”

Federal and private biologists said Wednesday that they had ruled out disease as a primary cause for Orange County’s many beached sea lions because all but two were dead when they hit the shore. If they are diseased or malnourished, sea lions usually struggle to the shore alive, the biologists said.

Squid Running in January

Lecky and federal biologist Joe Cordaro said they doubt that the bullet found Wednesday was fired accidentally because of the method California fishermen usually use to catch squid, which sometime involves shooting sea lions.

They also noted that the squid were running off Huntington Beach in January, about the time the sea lion carcasses began coming to rest along that city’s beach and the nearby Huntington Beach State Park.

In this form of fishing, fishermen, working at night, shine a bright light on water to attract squid. Fishermen are allowed to shoot a sea lion, but only as a last resort if efforts to harass him into leaving, including throwing a firecracker-like device at him called a seal bomb, do not work.

Sea lions are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, but they are not listed as an endangered species.

Lifeguards have reported that several other beached sea lions appeared to have been shot, but Lecky and other biologists said the marks could also have been made by pecking gulls. In the other cases, the bodies were too decomposed for necropsy, they said, and the dead mammals were buried on county beaches.

Federal officials did not have detailed records on the frequency with which sea lions have been stranded on Orange county beaches. Some years the numbers are higher because of natural phenomena like unusually warm water currents. However, Cordaro said, last year there were only 15 strandings.

Yearly Toll 2,600

About 2,600 sea lions die each year along the West Coast from “interaction with fishermen,” some of them shot, some tangled in nets, Cordaro said. Even so, Lecky estimated their population at about 87,000 now in waters from San Diego to British Columbia. That population is double that of 10 years ago and is growing at the rate of 5,700 a year.

For the fishermen who must compete with sea lions for their catch, the pinnipeds are not the charming, loveable characters that the public might see clapping their flippers at a circus. Rather, Emirzian and several others talked of “rogue sea lions” who “learn how to steal” from a gill net “and do it over and over and over again.”

Sitting at a San Pedro wharf-side restaurant called Canetti’s Seafood Grotto, Emirzian and a dozen gill net fishermen drank coffee and complained about news reporters, environmentalists and sea lions, in no particular order.

A fisherman can lose a day’s catch to a rogue lion who snatches fish from a net or jumps in and out of the net, guzzling fish and sometimes teaching other mammals his tricks, they said.

Such an animal, West noted, might raid a net full of 200 pounds of fish, or $500 worth, eating “40 to 60%” of it.

Under the circumstances, fishermen aren’t fond of sea lions. “How does a sheepherder feel about coyotes?” asked Nello Castagnola, president of the California Gillnetters Assn.

Added Pete Gugliani: “The best sea lion is, I think, at the San Diego Zoo.”

Times staff writer Steven R. Churm contributed to this story.