Exiled Sea Lion Resurfaces in Seattle--1,000 Miles Away

A sea lion that was transported 1,000 miles to the Channel Islands off Ventura to keep it from snacking on steelhead trout has made it back to Seattle after a 30-day swim.

Hal Alabaster, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the California sea lion, branded “No. 22,” was detected on a radio receiver last week and then spotted on a buoy near Seattle’s Alki Point.

No. 22 was branded and tagged with a radio transmitter before it was released near San Miguel Island on March 21. It and five other sea lions had been captured near the Ballard Locks in Seattle and trucked south in an effort to prevent the creatures from continuing to eat the run of wild steelhead trout that heads past the locks to spawn in streams that feed Lake Washington.

Wildlife experts had tried a number of other schemes to discourage the sea lions, including feeding them tainted fish and trucking them about 200 miles south. Trucking them 1,000 miles to their summer home in the Channel Islands was an experiment to see whether they would return to Puget Sound within the same season after being relocated, NOAA said in a news release.

“We wanted to find out if they would come back, and we did,” Alabaster said. “Now we have an idea how long it takes.”

Each of the animals had a radio transmitter glued to its back. Until now, only one animal, No. 42, had been recorded north of the Channel Islands. It was detected near Big Sur, south of Monterey, April 6, NOAA said.

National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman Joe Scordino said No. 22 will probably just turn around and head back south. The steelhead run is over and the fish ladder at the locks is closed for maintenance.

Scordino said scientists aren’t sure why No. 22 made the swim north, since this is the time of year when sea lions are leaving Puget Sound to return to California.

No. 22 is a well-traveled critter. Scordino said it also was among the sea lions trapped last year at Seattle and trucked to the Washington coast. Those animals were back at the locks within a couple of weeks.