4 More Sea Lions Wash Up Dead at Huntington Beach

Three dead sea lions washed onto the beach Thursday in the latest in a string of such incidents here, authorities said.

Lifeguard officials, who said a fourth sea lion in the area was decomposed and appeared to have been on the beach for several days, said they did not know the cause of the deaths. The four were scheduled to be buried Thursday night in the sand near where they were found, about half a mile west of Golden West Street at Pacific Coast Highway, said Lt. Steve Davidson of the city’s Marine Safety Division.

A total of nine dead sea lions reportedly have washed onto the city’s beaches since May 1, Davidson said, and officials do not know why.

The city’s lifeguards, who recorded the animal’s deaths, alerted the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency which enforces the Marine Mammal Protection Act and oversees private agencies that deal with sea animals. Officials with the fisheries service were not available for comment late Thursday.

Judi Jones, the director of operations for Friends of the Sea Lions, said her volunteer agency has seen a steady rise in the number of sick sea lions found from Seal Beach to San Clemente in the past few years. Friends of the Sea Lions, based in Laguna Beach, helped 155 sea lions last year, compared to 69 two years ago. So far this year, the agency’s veterinarians have tended to about 70.

“It could be that these animals that are coming to shore are sick,” said Jones, but she said she does not know for sure what may be ailing the animals. She speculated the sea lions could be dying as a result of pollution, changes in water temperature which make certain food sources harder to find or even fishing nets floating off shore.

The sea lion deaths distressed some people on the beach who saw the bodies. Huntington Beach resident Karen Keller, 33, was walking with two of her young children in the afternoon when they saw the dead animals. Her kids “were absolutely screaming their heads off” at the sight, she said.