Navy Cancels Its Search for Wayward Sea Lion

The Navy called off its search Thursday for Pumpkin, the California sea lion that wandered away from a routine training exercise in the Channel Islands, saying the wayward sea lion would have to return on its own.

“Pumpkin will have to go ashore on his own or swim back to San Diego,” Navy spokesman Tom LaPuzza said. He said animal experts consider it unlikely that Pumpkin will return to his pen in San Diego Harbor.

LaPuzza said the Navy canceled its search for the 16-year-old sea lion Thursday afternoon after searchers failed to catch a glimpse of the elusive Pumpkin during the day.

The sea lion, which was trained by the Navy for 15 years to recover dummy mines, disappeared during a training mission near Santa Rosa Island nine days ago. Navy searchers located and briefly captured Pumpkin on Tuesday on Gull Island near Santa Cruz Island.

The sea lion was injured in a fall as the would-be rescuers approached, but then wrestled free from their grasp, wiggled out of a harness that contained a radio beacon and dived back into the sea.

Searchers spotted the sea lion for the last time late Tuesday as they sounded an audible beacon and tried to coax him back with buckets of fish. But without the locational beacon to home in on, the Navy was left with little choice but to wait for Pumpkin to tire of his new freedom and return, LaPuzza said.

“We will now rely on reports from fishermen, the Coast Guard, lifeguards or boat owners who run into a sea lion that is real interested in humans or jumps in their boat,” LaPuzza said.