A temporary field hospital staged in a dog park near the Pacific Marine Mammal Center is nearing capacity with more rescued sea lion pups already seen this season than in seven years, and concerns about large numbers being found dead around the islands where the marine mammals breed.
It isn’t the first time the rescue center has seen a grave season for the sea lions – there was a large die off between 2013 and 2016 – but this time it is in the middle of a $16 million renovation of its facilities and has a field hospital set up in the nearby park.
The renovated PMMC campus will be shared with the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter and feature new pools and a water recycling plant once complete.
For now the temporary space features two trailers housing veterinarians, volunteers and staff, who prepare medicines and daily fish meals and perform medical treatments and surgeries. A fenced-in area with a roof completes the field hospital, where recovering sea lions, harbor seals and elephant seals have plenty of room to get healthy and play in pools and dry pens.
The sea lions and seals recovering there now are doing well, PMMC officials said, and some are even enjoying some amenities prompted by a makeshift way of getting water to the pools.
“The water pipes go up and over into the pools and it creates a fun little shower for some of our patients,” CEO Glenn Gray said.
While Gray said the center has an agreement with the city to vacate the property with the completion of the construction project — expected at year’s end — he now hopes it can become permanent to help with future overflow, especially now as reports from the sea lions breeding grounds are causing concerns among marine mammal experts.
“The extra capacity would be really helpful if we have another Unusual Mortality Event,” he said.
The last time the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared a mass stranding and die off of sea lions and seals was about a decade ago when warmer surface temperatures forced mother sea lions to swim farther from their Channel Island rookeries, leaving behind starving pups.
While many died on the islands, some strong and willful enough to swim, ventured across the ocean and were found sick and dying on beaches across the state, taxing rescue centers.
Both Gray and John Warner, CEO of the Marine Mammal Center Los Angeles in San Pedro, are concerned about the reports coming from Ano Nuevo Island, a rookery located between San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
Already, both rescue centers are nearing capacity, with a higher-than-average number of sea lions born last year.
At MMCLA, Warner said rescues of the near-yearlings are up by 65% over last year at this time.
At SeaWorld San Diego, sea lion pup rescues are also up over last year and to the north, at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, the center is prepping for an uptick in rescues and has taken in 160 patients so far, which is historically higher than in past years, officials said.
Since January, the San Pedro center has received more than 1,000 reports of beached marine mammals and is at capacity. PMMC has responded to 200 rescues.
“It’s strange,” PMMC’s Dr. Alissa Deming said of events impacting ocean conditions this year. The effects of an El Nino winter lessened food sources for some animals, but that may not be the only problem, she said, adding she is still studying tissue samples from rescued animals to look for other causes of illness.
At the same time, NOAA scientists are keeping an eye on the drama unfolding off the Northern California island, where 250 to 300 dead sea lion pups born this year were found ahead of the peak of pupping season, which is typically in mid-June.
About 25,000 pups are born each year in rookeries on the Channel Islands. San Miguel Island has among the larger rookeries. While a percentage of the pups die, especially during El Nino years, experts are perplexed by what’s happening now.
“Something happened to make prey less accessible in the last couple months,” said Michael Milstein, spokesman for NOAA. “There are also starving pelicans and emaciated elephant seals that have begun to fill up rehab facilities at least a month ahead of the usual.”
Still, scientists don’t know if there’s a tie between the starving pelicans and the sea lion pup die-off, he said. Other concerns include toxins or viruses caused by bacteria.
A team of NOAA scientists recently arrived on San Miguel and are doing spot checks and weighing the newly born pups. Milstein said the goal is to determine whether the percentage of dead pups “exceeds the expected range.”
When there is plenty of prey, there are lots of healthy pups. When things shift and sea lion mothers have to go farther or work harder to find prey, there tend to be more sickly pups, more premature births, and fewer survivors.
This is very closely tied to ocean conditions, Milstein said, research done by the same NOAA team indicates that if sea surface conditions go up by 2 degrees, the sea lion population goes down about 7%.
“The scientists are looking at what may have changed,” Milstein said, “and noting also that upwelling that fuels the West Coast ecosystem was delayed this year by a couple of months.”
Putting together all the issues seen with the sea lion pups and other marine mammals, Grey said, “We’re not expecting a regular year.
“Gosh forbid if we have something similar to last year,” he added, referring to June and July when more than 1,000 sea lions sought refuge on the sand along Southern California after becoming poisoned en masse by a toxin. “If something unusual happens, it would be nice to have something in reserve.”
Both of the local rescue centers are asking local coastal communities to contribute more and collaborate with the programs.
Following last summer’s dire situation, which led to NOAA warning municipalities about keeping beachgoers away from the sick animals ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, Warner pushed for more collaboration between beach cities and counties and called the emergency “a wake-up call” for environmental and public safety agencies.
“Our environment is changing and changing more rapidly than we can keep up with,” Warner said. “Our environment is not within our predictive control. We don’t have time left to start fixing things. The time is now, we’ve heard about it and we know what we need to do.”
While the city of Laguna Beach has stepped up and supported PMMC now for more than 54 years, Gray said other beach towns and the county should pitch in more.
Warner said he’s spent the past year speaking with local city and county lawmakers to get them to embrace the concept that marine mammal rescue centers along the state’s coastline can’t be solely responsible for dealing with massive events like the one last summer, especially when it impacts public safety.
“Our level of readiness is not where it needs to be,” he said. “Lifeguards are taking the brunt when we’re at capacity. There could be a specific requirement for each city to contribute a small amount so we can focus on our growth, rather than working hand-to-mouth.”
While cities are still finalizing annual budgets, he said he’s gotten positive responses from city leaders in Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Long Beach.
Still, he cautions the center will not be able to meet needs if this summer brings anything like what happened last year.
“Los Angeles is the busiest 75 miles of coastline for animal rescue than anywhere else in the country,” he said. “If we get into another year of this, it isn’t because stranding operations haven’t raised the red flag.”
