Sea Lion Gives Rescuers the Slip, but They’ll Try Again : Wildlife: Volunteers fail a second time to net the injured mammal off Malibu.

An injured California sea lion with part of a gill net slicing into its neck eluded attempts to capture it off Malibu for the second day in a row on Friday, but rescuers said they plan to try again on Monday.

“I almost had it and then--bam!--it was gone,” said Gary Hoffmann, a volunteer with Friends of the Sea Lion, a Laguna Beach group that specializes in helping injured sea lions.

After waiting patiently for almost an hour each time, Hoffmann and a colleague tried twice to throw a net around the 150-pound mammal as it lay atop a small bait platform a quarter of a mile off Malibu Pier.

But each time, the young sea lion slipped back into the choppy waters.

“If we could have just diverted its attention, we could have had it,” Lori Genetive said. “It just wouldn’t take its eyes off us more than a second or two the whole time.”

A sportfisherman first spotted the sea lion two weeks ago on the platform, where anchovies used as fishing bait are stored. Afterward, local fishermen began trying to get animal control and Fish and Game officials to mount a rescue mission.

County animal control officers on Thursday tried to snare the animal in a large net laid on the surface of the platform. On Friday, the volunteer rescuers tried a different approach, using a net mounted on a pole.

“There’s no question it will die unless we can capture it,” said Judi Jones, the group’s director. “It looks like it’s in pain, with the net cutting into its neck like that. Judging from how lean it looks, I would also say the net is restricting its ability to get food.”

She said the sea lion appears to be “a juvenile, about three years old.” Remnants of the net are clearly visible around its neck.

Gill net fishing near shore is illegal in Santa Monica Bay from Malibu Point to Palos Verdes Point, but Fish and Game officials say that the nets are used farther north by fishermen seeking halibut in the waters off Point Dume.