A Million Stories in the Naked Ocean

Police found her wandering through the streets of Venice in the predawn darkness Wednesday, lost, disheveled and cold.

They put her in the squad car and dropped her off at a nearby way station, where she stayed until daybreak. Then it was off to Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, where she was put in solitary and is serving one to three months.

That is, if she lives that long.

No. 8, as she is now called, is a California sea lion pup, between 6 and 7 months old.

The way station was a local animal shelter. Fort MacArthur, a sprawling complex on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, is home to the Marine Mammal Care Center. Solitary is a large yard with a small pool, protected by a chain-link fence.

It is there that No. 8, who had strayed a couple of blocks inland, is being treated with antibiotics in hopes that it will cure her pneumonia, where she is being fed a steady diet of fish milkshakes in hopes that it will add some blubber to her scrawny frame and give her the strength to eventually be put back to the world from which she came, and live a normal pinniped life.

It’s quite a human-interest story: a wayward critter as far out of its element as it could be, being rescued from the mean streets by L.A.’s finest.

This, of course, is why several television news crews spent a good part of their day Wednesday at the care center, their cameras rolling on little No. 8.

But the story doesn’t end there.

There is a good chance that No. 8 will die. “She’s in pretty bad shape,” says Jackie Ott, operations manager at the care center. “She still can’t breathe very well.”

It is safe to say that No. 8 will not be the last sick or injured marine mammal to be put under the care of its dedicated staff in the months to come. The pupping season just now is getting under way, which means not only young sea lions but harbor seals, northern fur seals and even northern elephant seals will be showing up on beaches up and down the coast.

Many will not have been weaned when left by their mothers and may be suffering from lack of nourishment, dehydration or pneumonia. Many will be injured by nets of fishermen, by boat propellers or hungry sharks. Many will be perfectly healthy and merely napping on the beach.

All will be vulnerable to humans, well-meaning or not.

Therefore, the care center staff has this advice for those who might encounter a young marine mammal lying on the beach: Keep your distance. They are wild animals, they can bite and their bites can cause not only serious pain but diseases that are equally painful and difficult to treat.

If you do come across a seal or sea lion, and it appears to be in distress, contact authorities, preferably the nearest animal control agency, which will know how to handle the situation.

Ott says she hates to preach what she believes to be a common-sense course of action, but feels she must do so every year at this time because too many people seem to want to take matters into their own hands.

“People tend to pick them up and take them home, which as we know is illegal,” Ott says, referring to the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to harass or even approach pinnipeds. “They’ll have them at home. The animals, because they have been taken from mom are not getting proper nourishment, will get sick and develop pneumonia. And when people realize that they’re not fun to have anymore, then we’ll get them.

“And in many cases it’s totally unnecessary. The pups will follow mom, and wherever mom decides she will haul out and take a nap she will do so, and then she’ll leave the pup for a couple of hours and go out and go fishing. And the people will go, ‘Oh, a baby seal. I’ll take it home and help it.’ That’s our biggest problem. Believe it or not, these guys get snatched a lot that way, and that is unfortunate because a lot of them will die.”

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The Marine Mammal Care Center, with a paid staff of just Ott and Director Don Zumwalt, and a volunteer staff of dozens, has cared for only eight sea lion pups so far this season, but by the end of March the small pools figure to be bustling with dozens of barking pinnipeds.

During the busy season, which typically runs from March through August, the facility acts as a hospital for 50-75 animals at any one time, and in the course of a season it will care for 150-350 sick or injured pinnipeds.

Ott says the critical period for sick and malnourished pups such as No. 8 is the first two or three days. If they survive that, they usually begin to regain their strength fairly quickly, especially when they start to eat on their own, and undergo a rehabilitation period that usually lasts one to three months.

After that, they are taken by boat to a location as far away from the crowded Southland beaches as possible; often to one of the Channel Islands--and released back into the world in which they were born. “To me it’s kind of difficult because they didn’t make it the first time so you’re kind of saying, ‘Go try it again,’ ” Ott says. “But it’s a real good feeling when you know you’re helping an animal or giving it a second chance.

“But on the other hand, it’s a tough world out there. It’s kind of like sending your kids off to the big city.”

Which, it seems, is exactly what happened to No. 8.

Ott says this is the first time she has heard of a stranded sea lion pup getting a police escort to the hospital. “But we’ve heard of them in restaurant lots, and rooting around in dumpsters,” she adds. “They’re a lot like wild dogs, with kind of similar behavior. They just have funny-looking feet.”

TURNAROUND

Southbound gray whale sightings are diminishing because the gentle giants, for the most part, have already completed their 6,000-mile journey to Baja’s warm-water lagoons, where they bring little whales into the world.

Some couldn’t wait, giving birth well before crossing the border. One of those whales, many will recall, ended up at Sea World under the care of biologists.

“We’ve seen 41 southbound cow-calf pairs,” said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, director of the California Gray Whale Census Project, run largely by volunteer spotters situated on the bluff at the Point Vincente Interpretive Center on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Janiger-Schulman said the other day that spotters, who not only count but monitor the behavior of whales, had counted 910 grays traveling south beneath the bluff, the most in 10 years.

She also suggested that those planning whale-watching trips aboard Southland boats would probably be wise to wait two weeks or so, when the northbound migration will be in full swing.

“The southbound migration usually comes to an end between Feb. 10-22,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll see a couple of hundred more, and then we begin to see more northbound whales. We’ve already seen a few.”

Schulman-Janiger added that volunteer spotters are welcome at the interpretive center. All they need are binoculars. Details: (310) 377-5730.

BAJA BITE

Cabo San Lucas: The cool, green water that has put a damper on fishing seems slowly to be giving way to a bluer, warmer sea--to the liking of marlin, tuna and dorado. Still, patches of green extend 15 miles out, the weather remains unseasonably cool (daytime temperatures have been topping out at about 80) and dorado, not marlin, remain the predominant catch. Notable landings of other species: a 35-pound swordfish that would have been released, its captors say, had it not snapped its bill off while thrashing about beside the boat; and a 160-pound mako shark, which according to Los Cabos Fishing Centers’ Jeff Klassen “was nasty at boatside, repeatedly biting the vessel and bending the gaff like a pretzel.”

East Cape/La Paz: Similar water and weather conditions exist, with strong winds making things worse. David Jones, owner of Fishermen’s Fleet in La Paz, went fishing with two friends Wednesday and said they were greeted at dawn by a 15-knot northerly that increased throughout the day. All they caught was one sierra mackerel and one black skipjack. “We’ll give it a go tomorrow, unless El Norte continues, in which case we won’t,” he said.

Loreto: Same north winds, spotty fishing, with a smattering of yellowtail and cabrilla.

San Quintin: San Quintin Sportfishing on the Pacific side south of Ensenada has reopened after a three-week boat maintenance-related closure and anglers are experiencing early signs of spring, battling yellowtail, barracuda and bonito. Top catch, a 14-pound yellowtail by Steve McCarthy of San Diego. The best bet, however, is a squid-tipped iron lure dropped to the bottom, where red rock cod are holed up. San Quintin Sportfishing can be reached at (619) 222-8955.

San Diego long-range: Pete Gray recently returned from a multiday tuna trip aboard the Royal Polaris to Mexico’s Revillagigedo Islands, where he caught, of all things, a 375-pound black marlin. “It ate a five-inch sardine,” he said. “We never saw it and the whole time we thought it was a big tuna, and then it came to color and I said, ‘Wow, it’s a marlin.’ ” Unfortunately, the marlin died during the hourlong fight so it couldn’t be released.