Sea Lion Cut by Net Stays Out of Reach : Wildlife: Supporters of Gilly blame county for failing to capture and treat the mammal.

After a year and numerous rescue attempts, a sea lion nicknamed Gilly with a gill net slicing into its neck continues to defy experts--and the odds--in the waters off Malibu.

But some of Gilly’s supporters, saying bureaucratic bungling is to blame, are upset that the effort to save the 150-pound mammal appears to have floundered.

“We have the technology to put men on the moon and we can’t save one dying sea lion a quarter of a mile off the Malibu Pier,” animal rights advocate Tom Dobyns said. “Something’s wrong.”

The injured young sea lion was first spotted more than a year ago on a bait platform near the pier where anchovies used as fishing bait are stored. A loop of monofilament plastic was cutting into its neck.

Since then, Gilly has basked on the small platform for days at a time while eluding capture.

“It’s a sad thing just to see it out there, knowing that unless somebody is able to do something, it’s doomed to die,” said Phil Campanella, who operates a fish-and-tackle shop at the pier.

Gilly’s supporters say it has been at least four months since anyone has attempted a rescue.

When the effort to save Gilly began to wane last September, local residents raised more than $5,000 to donate a sophisticated net gun to Los Angeles County in the hope of aiding the sea lion’s capture.

But county animal control officials have yet to use the gun to try to capture Gilly, saying that they were ordered not to by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has jurisdiction over sea animal rescue attempts. A fisheries service official, however, denied giving such an order.

“I think I expressed the sentiment (last November) that maybe everyone should just back off for a while so as not to traumatize the animal, and that got misinterpreted,” said the official, Joe Cordero, a marine biologist.

Experts have expressed surprise that Gilly has survived this long and say that the animal will die unless it is captured and the gill net, which they say is slowly choking it, is removed.

Gill net fishing along the California coast was outlawed last year. Even before the ban, the practice was illegal in Santa Monica Bay from Malibu Point to Palos Verdes Point. Game and fish officials speculate that Gilly may have become tangled in the nets of fishermen seeking halibut farther north, in the waters off Point Dume.

Two private groups each tried several times to rescue Gilly. In one attempt, two rescuers boarded the platform and crawled to within a few feet of the animal, only to see it vanish into the sea when a small airplane flew over.

The attempts soon attracted so much media interest that rescuers, bothered by TV camera crews and newspaper reporters who crowded onto a county lifeguard rescue boat, resorted to conducting their efforts secretly.

Frank Turner, a county animal control official, acknowledged that the agency does not have personnel who are adequately trained to use the net gun. “We’re mainly here for dogs and cats,” he said.

An animal control officer tried to use the gun to capture an injured goose at Zuma Beach several months ago, he said, “and missed.” Witnesses said that the goose was eventually chased down and subdued inside a restroom at the beach.

Meanwhile, the Malibu veterinarian who led the effort to give the net gun to the county said she was disappointed that no new rescue efforts have been launched.

“The critical fact is, Gilly is still out there,” Nancy Smith said. “That, to me, is very sad.”