Sea Lion Is Set for Return Home

A 195-pound sea lion was recovering Monday after swimming nearly five miles up the San Diego Creek channel, reaching the unlikely destination of the Irvine Civic Center before calling it a day.

The mammal, a 3- or 4-year-old female dubbed Irvine, was expected to be released back into the ocean Wednesday after resting at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach.

“This is the farthest inland we’ve ever picked up a sea lion,” said Michele Hunter, director of operations and animal care at the nonprofit rehabilitation center. “We have seen some marine animals out in the Back Bay before. They may have been following some fish or something, took the wrong turn and couldn’t figure out how to get back.”

Last year, a male sea lion about the same age traveled nearly 100 miles from San Francisco Bay up the San Joaquin River, where a farmer discovered him lounging along a road in Merced County -- half a mile from the nearest water.

Irvine’s travels set an Orange County record for lost sea lions, outdistancing another lion which, 10 years ago, reached the UC Irvine campus.

Irvine’s appearance Thursday brought rescuers from animal control, the Irvine Fire Department and the marine center to the scene, where the channel runs alongside the Irvine Civic Center. As they waited, the mammal moved into shallower water and was then cajoled by rescuers with boards into a large net, Geary said.

Irvine snapped and barked as officials carried her up the hill and took her to Laguna Beach.

“She put up a good fight,” Hunter said.

The mammal was cranky throughout the weekend, she said, barking, clamoring against her fence and refusing her herring dinner. Although it’s usual for sea lions to fast occasionally, Hunter said, they injected her with fluids as a precaution. And thinking that company might sweeten her mood, caretakers introduced a young male sea lion to her pen, but that didn’t work either.

“She really didn’t want to socialize,” Hunter said. “She crawled over and looked kind of irritated.”

Sea lions can travel up to 20 mph in open water, frequently alone, and are more agile on land than the more awkward harbor seals.

Over the past few years, hundreds of California sea lions have become disoriented or beached themselves after ingesting fish containing domoic acid, a toxin found in some red tide, said Tim Hovey, assistant fisheries biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game.

But Hunter said Irvine didn’t have the seizures or bulging eyes associated with the illness.

So, deemed healthy, Irvine will be taken Wednesday to the farthest buoy in Dana Point. Until then, she’ll laze in the sun, swatting flies and flopping in the pool.