Swimmers, Seals Are Both Vying for a Piece of the Rock in La Jolla : Wildlife: A proposal to make Seal Rock off-limits to humans has polarized the community.

Marko Zalokar peers angrily out to sea, cups his hands into a human bullhorn and blasts the trespassers tanning themselves at the La Jolla hangout known as Seal Rock.

“Hey you! Get away from there!” he yells at the boys who lounge on the jut of offshore rocks the size of a small tugboat. “That place belongs to the seals! You’re bothering the seals! Go home! Scram! Did you hear me?”

The youths only laugh in his face. But the reaction to Zalokar’s scoldings has been worse. Some sun-bathers have yelled back threats, shaken their fists and gestured obscenely.

Moments before, a half dozen glistening California harbor seals had lounged on the smooth formation located a short swim south of La Jolla Cove. Like lemmings diving into the sea, they skittered off the rocks as soon as the snorkelers climbed aboard.

The human intrusion made Zalokar as angry as a protective mother guarding her pups.

“That’s what bothers me, right there,” he says, tugging at his Hawaiian shirt, pointing a finger at the scene. “These people are like predators laying claim to their territory, chasing off those seals. They telling the seals, ‘Back off! We’re humans and we have domain here.’

“It’s scandalous! There’s a whole coastline of beach out there, and they have to try and populate the one place the seals try to call their own. And we’re all just standing here watching, letting it happen. Well, I’m not going to stand for it!”

Zalokar, 74, a retired molecular genetics researcher from UC San Diego, is part of a growing movement to persuade local officials to protect the squadrons of seals and sea lions--not to mention sea birds such as the pelicans and cormorants--that regularly flock to the rocks.

The skittish seals are less social than the sea lions and will bolt at the first sign of human presence, experts say. The larger sea lions will often sleep peacefully with swimmers and rock jumpers clambering all around them.

Some residents want the city of San Diego to create a wildlife sanctuary for the sea creatures, making it illegal for swimmers or others to enter the area surrounding the rocks--which sit about 30 yards offshore, next to a popular swimming and diving area known as the Children’s Pool.

Other residents say there already are too many laws regulating public use of the ocean. The federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, as well as a city code, protect the sea animals from harassment or injury.

The seals are off a scenic beach populated by locals and tourists each year--swimmers, sun-bathers, snorkelers and scuba divers.

Leave the rocks alone, many locals say. Leave the seals to fend for themselves. And let the swimmers be.

“This whole sanctuary plan is an exercise in futility,” said Carl Lind, a longtime La Jolla resident and member of the local town council’s Parks and Beaches Committee. “La Jolla doesn’t need any more laws to protect those seals and sea lions. They’re doing well enough on their own.”

The sanctuary crowd claims the seals have been harassed by swimmers and tourists to the point where they may be driven permanently from the rocks. Witnesses have seen intruders throw rocks at the creatures as well as try to pet and feed them.

Recently, a group of seal watchers approached La Jolla town council’s Parks and Beaches Committee, which voted in favor of making the rock off-limits--a move that fell short of establishing a full-fledged sanctuary. On Thursday, the issue will again be heard by the council’s Parks and Beaches Committee and next month will be discussed by the entire council.

The La Jolla town council is solely an advisory body, and any plan would have to receive approval of the San Diego City Council.

Barbara Bamberger, a former conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club who has helped spearhead the sanctuary idea, says the rocks may be the last mainland seal refuge in Southern California this side of Ventura County.

Bamberger and others have proposed that the city limit use of the area within a 50 feet perimeter of the rocks, but not including nearby sandy beaches.

In the meantime, they propose that scientists conduct a five-year study to determine the significance of the slippery rocks to the seal’s breeding and daily rest habits.

Advocates claim that the rocks have become a popular “haul-out” area for countless California harbor seals, which must rest for a significant part of the day. The rocks also might serve as a rookery, where seal pups are born and introduced into their new underwater environment, the sanctuary supporters say.

The sanctuary plan calls for a docent program where on-site volunteers would explain to the public the importance of preserving the rocks as a seal refuge. Signs warning against approaching the rocks or harassing the seals would be posted at key beach access points.

Similar sanctuaries have been established in Ventura County, backers of the plan say. In all, they claim, less than one acre of the beach would go toward saving a sea mammal habitat.

Doyle Hanan, an associate marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said studies show that seals have been driven away by persistent human presence.

“It’s been documented in a couple areas, most notably Strawberry Spit in San Francisco,” he said. “Seals have abandoned sites.”

Hanan, who has studied seals and their habitats, including conducting an annual count of seals along the California coast, said the numbers of the sea creatures have doubled in the last decade. Since 1982, he said, the number of counted seals has risen from 12,000 to 24,000, and the number of rookeries has risen from 428 to more than 800.

“No one has ever done a study at Seal Rock to see if the place indeed is a rookery,” he said. “People say they’ve seen pups in the area, but I never have.”

Like many issues in palm-studded La Jolla, the debate over the seals has polarized the community.

“There’s a possible over-reaction going on here,” said Sandra Brokaw, a member of the La Jolla town council. “La Jolla is known as a mecca for swimmers and scuba divers and snorkelers, both locals and tourists alike.

“Well, what kind of message are we sending out if we declare a prime area of shoreline off-limits to the very people we’re trying to attract? I think education is the key. I mean, most people go to those rocks to rest, not scare off the seals. If we let people know the importance of the rocks, maybe the problem would solve itself.”

Not so, says former airline pilot Dave Odell, a fellow La Jollan.

Odell says he has seen youths throw rocks at the seals from just a few feet away. Last week, he said, two young fishermen offering the seals catches on the end of harpoons were cited by Fish and Game officials on the scene.

Marko Zalokar, a native of the former Yugoslavia, has been an on and off La Jolla resident for the last three decades. He says seals once came to La Jolla in droves. In fact, the Children’s Pool, off Coast Boulevard, was once known as Seal Beach because the mammals used to sun themselves on the warm sand.

Over the years, as the tourist and local populations grew, the seals had to compete with humans for their place in the sun.

One recent morning, Zalokar said, he saw as many as 30 seals sunning themselves on the rock when two swimmers suddenly surprised them. “There’s no big city in the world that can offer a site like that--seals and sea lions in their natural habitat so close to mankind,” he said. “and people are trying to destroy that, people with little brains who are spoiling it for the rest of us.”

From his air-conditioned, windowed office overlooking the La Jolla shore, Sgt. John Liddle of the San Diego city lifeguard unit said that, although guards could ticket people for harassing the seals, the call is often difficult to make. And, frankly, he added, there aren’t enough guards to go around.

“On slow days at low tide, we often chase kids off who go there to taunt the seals,” he said. “but it’s definitely a judgment call. And our first priority is to protect people, not seals. Especially in the wintertime, when our manpower is at its lowest, we just don’t have the people to worry about that sort of thing.”

Each day, dozens of people stop their walks along the scenic La Jolla coastline to watch the seals. Sometimes, locals say, the creatures will struggle for half an hour, battling the current to pull themselves up on the low end of the rocks.

On a recent sunny weekday afternoon, more than a dozen people looked on from shore as several swimmers chased seals away from the rocks. Five sea lions lay sleeping, ignoring their yells back and forth.

As the seals dived for the water, several people clucked their tongues.

“Look! They’re chasing those seals away,” one man said to his wife. “Someone should stop them.”

In the water, solitary seals popped their heads out of the surf and looked longingly at the rock.

Marko Zalokar says the concern over the seals doesn’t tell the whole story. He’s also fighting to protect his right to witness something natural and beautiful without having to go to a zoo or aquarium.

“Everyone loves to gaze out at the ocean and take in the sight of nature and her beauty,” he said, gazing into his trusty binoculars. “That’s why people will pay $100,000 more for their house just because it’s on the ocean.

“These seals are a resource for San Diego, for its residents and its tourists--just to come here and watch them and understand them.”

Moments later, the three Seal Rock sunbathers swam back to shore and offered their version of the turf battle at Seal Rock.

“What a crock,” said Pete Bazigian, when told of the complaints. “I was up there petting those sea lions and they didn’t mind one bit. And the seals, as long as you don’t harass them, they won’t jump.”

The San Diegan said he disagreed with the sanctuary idea. Or even outlawing people from the rocks.

“It’s just typical La Jolla,” he said. “It’s great to be able to interact with those animals in a natural setting, outside the zoo. But, naturally, all the old fogeys are against it.

“You know what? The people who are doing the complaining are just jealous they can’t swim out there. Most of them are so old, fat and out of shape, they couldn’t even climb up on that rock.”