Sea Lions, Seals Find Safe Harbor

They washed ashore on Ventura County’s beaches with last weekend’s rain--19 seal and sea lion pups starving and sick from the famine that has struck the Channel Islands.

Deserted by their mothers--who have been swimming farther and farther offshore in a desperate search for food--they are now being coddled by volunteers intent on nursing them back to health.

They gorge on Gatorade, fish shakes and occasional handfuls of restaurant-quality sardines at San Pedro’s Fort MacArthur Marine Mammal Center--with shots of medication thrown in for various ailments and injuries, from pneumonia to shark bites.

“It’s hard to sit there and watch something die on the beach,” said Jackie Ott, director of the center, which handles all sea animals stranded between Ventura County and Long Beach. “It’s human nature to help. . . . I’m a scientist, but I’m also an animal person. My satisfaction is giving them another chance at life.”

But scientists studying the El Nino-driven famine, which has killed 6,500 pups on San Miguel Island off the Ventura County coast, say the rescue efforts are often futile.

“If mum’s abandoned the pups, the probability for survival is little,” said marine biologist Bob DeLong of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. “They’ve got no experience, and when you just fatten them up and send them back into an impoverished environment . . . well, it’s a wasted rehabilitation effort.

“But I understand it,” DeLong added. “It’s the big-brown-eye syndrome. Cuteness definitely is a factor here.”

Along a row of gated pens at the Fort MacArthur center, dozens of big brown eyes follow Jackie Ott as she walks with a pail of sardines.

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The weaker pups are fed high-protein, high-calorie concoctions through tubes, and receive Gatorade to help with dehydration. The stronger ones eat whole fish.

As Ott waves a sardine in front of one young sea lion, a tube-fed pup in the next pen starts to respond.

“We have an eater,” Ott calls to one volunteer. “Switch him to whole fish.”

“Who is it?” the volunteer asked.

“Twenty-two,” she answers, pointing to the pup with the corresponding number shaved into the fur of its left hip. “Twenty-two needs a half pound of smelt.”

Then, turning to the recuperating, brown-eyed 22, she coos encouragement: “You might just get to live with No. 12 over there if you keep eating so well.”

Nearly all the pups and yearlings recently brought into the center are suffering from malnutrition. Many are also sick with secondary illnesses.

The healthier ones--those nearly ready to be returned to the Pacific Ocean--stay in Pen 6, where they swim, play and “compete” for top-grade smelt and sardines--at 75 cents a pound--in a 13,000-gallon pool. The sicker ones stay quarantined and must be hand-fed.

The center now has 50 marine mammals, 19 of them rescued along the Ventura County coast last weekend.

That is because the majority of California’s pinnipeds breed on the Channel Islands, and the most heavily populated spot is San Miguel Island, 50 miles off the Ventura coast.

This year, scientists say, El Nino’s warming of the ocean is causing food shortages for California sea lions and northern fur seals on islands off the coast.

Mothers must spend longer periods away from their pups to hunt for sardines, squid, herring and anchovies, which are finding refuge in colder, deeper waters.

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Since June, at least 4,500 California sea lions and 2,000 northern fur seals have died on San Miguel Island, most from starvation, according to preliminary statistics compiled by DeLong’s agency. Scientists assume there are several thousand more dead animals on islands up and down the coast, but they do not track the numbers there.

They estimate, though, that almost the entire pup populations of both mammal groups born last June--the animals’ birthing period--will die before the pups are a year old. DeLong said yearlings have a better chance at survival than the younger animals, since they are more mature and know how to swim and hunt for food.

Many of the pups--if they don’t starve to death in weaning from weakened, energy-sapped mothers--also face the danger of being washed off the islands and caught in the ocean currents.

When these stranded animals reach the beach, they are taken to the Fort MacArthur center. Those found north of Ventura County are shipped to the Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center.

Scientists, who have been studying marine mammals on San Miguel Island for three decades, recognize the good intentions of rescue workers, but say efforts to save the animals during a natural condition such as El Nino are often pointless.

DeLong said he does not actively support attempts to rescue animal species that are not endangered, such as California sea lions and northern fur seals. By his estimates, there are between 85,000 and 180,000 California sea lions and 1 million northern fur seals in U.S. waters.

Rather, he said, people should spend their money on restoring endangered species, such as Hawaiian monk seals and northern Pacific steller seals--populations that are suffering because of human disruption.

Not that he doesn’t understand the urge to help.

“People really do identify with the beauty of dolphins and the majesty of whales,” he said. “Understandably, people respond as they do. It’s just not entirely appropriate.”

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Ott said the mission of the Fort MacArthur Marine Mammal Center is, first, to help animals harmed because of human activity, such as those with wounds from gunshots, gill nets or boat propellers. But the center’s volunteers try to help any animal they can.

She added that she faces community pressure to rehabilitate the animals as well, since members of the public are forbidden to touch, let alone care for, any marine mammal stranded on the beach.

“You think people would just let me say ‘It’s El Nino’ and not try to save them?” she asked. “They want us to do it--and we want to do it--no matter what the cause.

In fact, the chief criticism of her center’s work is typically, “Why can’t you do more?” she said.

She said she is doing the best she can.

Normally, the center would have four animals recovering at this time of year, instead of the current tally of 50.

In a typical year, volunteers at the center might care for as many as 300 sick animals. But Ott fears she may have to help more than 800 animals in 1998, based on numbers gathered from other El Nino years.

Helping these sick creatures--some of which also have been bitten by sharks or slashed by boat propellers--takes time and money, two resources that are running low.

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Though her normal hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Ott has been starting her days at 5 in the morning and often leaving at 11 at night.

She is also trying to raise five to seven times the amount of cash she usually obtains in a year, based on the enormous influx of animals this year.

The center operates on about $130,000 annually, generated from interest from a trust fund, and Ott usually raises another $80,000 that pays for medicine, milk gruel at $80 a bucket, fish and pharmaceutical supplies.

Although it is practically impossible to track the survival rates of the released animals, volunteer Karen Cole of San Pedro said it’s enough just to give rescue a try.

“To see them come in half-dead, not swallowing, and then a couple of months later, they take off to the ocean . . .” she said. “It’s just so cool.”

FYI

If you see a stranded marine mammal, do not pick it up. As a wild animal, it may bite and carry disease. Also, it is against federal law, with significant fines. Do not disturb the animal for 48 hours, since it may be waiting for its mother’s return. After two days, call Ventura County Animal Regulation at 388-4341 or state beach lifeguards at 648-3321. A specialist will be dispatched to make a decision about the animal. For more information on scientific studides about El Nino’s effect on sea lions and seals, vist the National Marine Fisheries Service Web site at https://nmm101.afsc.noaa.gov/el--nino