Seal Summit Called in Battle for Beach

Two kinds of beach-loving mammals are having trouble co-existing at the revered Children’s Pool beach in swank La Jolla: humans and harbor seals.

So far, the seals, protected by federal law, are winning. Many of the humans are not happy.

For nearly a decade, much of the beach has been off-limits to humans because the furry sea creatures decided it made a nifty resting spot. Federal law prohibits harassing or disturbing the seals.

Seal droppings have severely polluted the water in the sheltered cove, which for many years was a favorite wading and swimming spot for parents and kids.

The seal issue has caused a bitter split between seal lovers and other residents, especially those in the neighborhood of the curvilinear beach. The beach was built in 1931 with a grant from philanthropist and newspaper heiress Ellen Browning Scripps, who wanted the site made comfortable for children.

“I had no idea people were this passionate over Children’s Pool,” said City Councilman Scott Peters, who was amazed at how many people had mentioned the issue when he walked precincts during last year’s election. “It was remarkable.” Now, in hope of finding a compromise and putting an end to the civic wrangling, the city plans to convene a summit of pinniped experts on July 29.

Scientists from the county health department, Sea World amusement park, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the state Fish & Game Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will meet to search for ways to accommodate the seals while returning more of the beach to human use.

The meeting will be held behind closed doors, lest public participation erupt into the verbal brawls that have marked past public discussions.

Announcement of the summit came just days after nine swimmers had been fined by a federal agency for staging a swim-in designed to show that seals and humans can be friends.

The incident turned into a fiasco when more than 50 seals got spooked, waddled off the beach excitedly and swam away, but not before one of them bit a swimmer. Watching from a nearby sea wall, pro-seal counter-demonstrators jeered the swimmers and cheered the seal that had done the biting.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced $1,000 fines for eight of the swimmers and $3,500 for one swimmer who allegedly had a brief confrontation with a federal official waiting on the beach.

The fines were imposed after a review of film shot of the incident, which occurred March 23 during “pupping season,” when seal babies are nestling with their mothers. What role maternal protectiveness played is a matter of dispute.

“The animals were clearly very agitated,” said Paul Ortiz, senior enforcement attorney for the NOAA Fisheries Southwest Region. “It’s not illegal to swim at Children’s Pool, but only if you can do it without harassing marine mammals. At pupping season, that’s difficult to do.”

The swimmers and their supporters say it was the jeering from seal boosters -- not maternal skittishness -- that caused the seals to bolt for the open ocean. The swimmers “were not a bunch of riff-raff people,” said Jean Perry, who was on the beach and supported the demonstration. “These are people who really care. We were representing the children and their right to use the pool.”

Perry is pessimistic about the summit. She noted that a similar session was held five years ago without success.

“The same people who allowed this craziness to happen are going to be sitting down there again,” she said.

But the Save Our Seals Coalition said that Perry and other swimmers are trying to buffalo the City Council into believing that they represent a majority of San Diegans.

“We’re convinced that there are far more people who enjoy recreational seal-watching than want to run along Children’s Pool and dip their toes in the water,” said Jim Hudnall, coalition coordinator and also an advisor to La Jolla Friends of the Seals. “We think the city should leave things alone.”

Just why the seals have taken a liking to the tiny cove just off Coast Boulevard is unclear.

One theory is that the seals developed a sense of entitlement after the city established an offshore islet known as Seal Rock as a seals-only preserve in 1994.

At first the seals stayed on Seal Rock, several hundred yards from Children’s Pool. Then they moved ashore and refused to move. Twenty signs tell visitors to the Children’s Pool to leave the seals alone, and lifeguards stay busy scolding people who get too close.

Caught between Children’s Pool loyalists and the pro-seal contingent, the City Council has sided with those who wish the seals would find somewhere else to sun themselves.

The council in April declined to renew the designation for Seal Rock as a seal preserve, despite petitions signed by 11,000 people asking that the designation be renewed and expanded to include the Children’s Pool beach. Swimmers and divers are again using Seal Rock.

After the participants in the July 29 summit develop some alternatives, a public hearing will be scheduled before the council makes any decision. The city is expecting the hearing to be heated.

“The emotions over this are off the charts,” said Robin Stribley, natural resource manager for the city parks and recreation department.