While the stranded sea lion pup situation continues to plague Malibu’s beaches, elephant seal rescue season is now underway, and the California Wildlife Center (CWC) is making strides to provide room for everyone.
“It’s still pretty busy,” Marine Program Manager at CWC Jeff Hall shared about the sea lion rescue season. “We’ve been having anywhere from three to six or seven strandings a day.”
The CWC has room for 10 elephant seals or 25 sea lions at its Malibu location. This is the first year CWC has been able to house sea lions and the second year for elephant seals. To date, they’ve rescued approximately 185 animals this year, or about two per day. The first elephant seal rescue of the season arrived about two weeks ago.
“There are 11 sea lions now,” Hall shared. “Once we get down in numbers, there will be 10 elephant seals.”
The rescue seasons for sea lions and elephant seals are overlapping, and the elephant seal season typically lasts from the middle of March toward the end of May. Despite record numbers of stranded sea lions rescued this year, elephant seal rescues are down from the average.
“So far, it has been slower than usual, and that can be because of any number of things,” Hall explained. “Pups could have been [born] later in the season. They may be staying with their mothers a couple of months longer. The season is slower and it started a little bit later than usual.”
Anything could change, but Hall shared that he and the CWC are “hoping that’s a good thing.”
And since the rescue seasons overlap, the CWC is working with other rescue facilities, including the Pacific Marine Mammal Center and SeaWorld, to give the animals the care they need.
“Three [of our elephant seals] came from the Pacific Marine Mammal Care center and four came from SeaWorld,” Victoria Harris, Executive Director of CWC said. “We traded eight sea lion pups for the four elephant seals with SeaWorld because neither of those centers are taking elephant seals this season in response to the sea lion crisis.”
“Elephant seals are a lot more involved and they take up more space,” Hall explained. “They’ll be here for a while.”
An elephant seal needs two to three months at the center before it is ready to be released into the wild, when sea lions only need six to eight weeks.
But even though elephant seal season is just starting, there is still a huge demand for sea lion rescues so the CWC is hoping to open an off-site facility that will house up to 100 additional sea lion pups.
“We hope to know this week if we can build a second temporary sea lion rehabilitation facility about 10 minutes away from us,” Harris said. The CWC is waiting on final approval on some permits before they are able to proceed with the facility, which would focus solely on sea lions.
“We mostly need funding on that one,” Hall shared. “Our budget is not done yet and it’s pretty high so any donation to the CWC for the marine mammal program will help us.”
Malibu residents and visitors looking for a way to help the sea lion and elephant seal population are better off donating money than taking matters into their own hands and feeding the stranded pups.
“Feeding any animal, whether it’s a human or wild animal, that’s in a state of emaciation can actually kill them,” Hall stressed. “Feeding a starving sea lion on the beach can actually facilitate its death.”
Beyond being illegal, feeding the pups is very dangerous for their health. For the first 72 hours after being rescued, the CWC doesn’t feed the pup. They are rehydrated slowly and then begin to transition to gruel after the first three days. Their body weight begins to come up and then they can handle food.
“It’s a very clinical and medical process,” Hall shared. “If people jump straight to the fish part, it can kill the animal very quickly.”
Anyone interested in donating to the CWC’s marine mammal program can visit cawildlife.org.
