Since January 1, almost 500 of the tiny pups have been found stranded on beaches up and down the coast.
A frightening number of emaciated and sick sea lion pups have been turning up on California’s beaches this year, the third winter in a row, leaving marine scientists baffled in trying to explain the reasons behind the strandings. Since January 1, almost 500 of the young pinnipeds have been admitted to the state’s rehabilitation centers.
Rescuers from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay in January alone, netted over 250 pups, most of them seven months old. Wildlife officials say that at this age, the pups should still be nursing with their mothers off the Channel Islands in Mexico and not off the coast of California.
Veterinarian Shawn Johnson of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito said, “They’re extremely emaciated, basically starving to death.” Johnson elaborated, saying the facility has already taken in 171 pups, but the phones keep ringing with calls about additional strandings. All five of the rescue facilities, from San Luis Obispo, to Fort Bragg, are bracing for more calls because the peak of the strandings is still months away.
“We’re all kind of holding our breath,” says Justin Viezbicke, stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Marine biologists are warning that if this die-off continues, it could deplete an entire generation of California sea lions. Volunteers and scientists are desperately fighting to save the pup’s lives while at the same time, keeping them wild. Three times a day, and sometimes more, volunteers snake tubes filled with a puree of herrings and fish oil down the starving pups esophagi, delivering a “chicken soup of the sea” directly into their stomachs.
Previous threats to the California sea lion population
Going back to the mid-1970s, sea lion populations were threatened by hunting and exposure to DDT causing their numbers to be reduced by over 11,000. With the passage in 1972 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ban on DDT, numbers rebounded. According to NOAA, the population of sea lions today is estimated to be around 300,000. Some marine biologists say the today’s population may be “bumping up against what the environment can support.”
In 2013, California’s Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach declared a state of emergency when by March, 517 starving sea lion pups had been rescued. In a statement released by the director of animal care Michele Hunter, she cited the 1998 El Nino weather pattern off the California coast that caused fish to migrate farther from shore and adult sea lions to swim farther in pursuit of food, making it more difficult for mother sea lions to care for their pups.
“Animal rescuers believe adult sea lions are again foraging deeper into the ocean this year, but the reasons are unclear. We are seriously concerned about the pace at which animals are stranding, and having the resources to keep up,” Hunter said.
Trying to get a complete picture
Scientists have already ruled out any serious illnesses or environmental toxins which could affect pups more than adult sea lions. They still are considering the shift in fish populations to be the best answer, causing sea lion mothers to swim farther in search of the fatty sardines so essential to their diet. This leaves the pups to stay on the beaches, eventually starving to death in many cases.
Knowing the picture is not complete in the investigation, NOAA has sent scientists to the Channel Islands in search of additional information. NOAA already has confirmed that a huge patch of warm water has settled offshore, and may be throwing ecosystems in western North America off-kilter.
“It’s been a really unusually warm year, and disruptive to the normal marine food web, from Baja all the way up to Alaska,” says Nate Mantua of NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Mantua says that starting in the early part of 2014, weather patterns spawned warm water patches offshore from Mexico to Alaska. By late 2014, the patches had merged into what he calls a “mega-blob.” And no one knows how long that will last, he says. Until the cause of the sea lion pups strandings are figured out, rescue centers will continue to try and save as many of the little creatures as possible.
