The California Wildlife Center released four northern elephant seal pups back into the wild at Paradise Cove in Malibu on Thursday, after about two months of rehabilitation.
The seals were some of the CWC’s first marine mammal rehabilitation patients, brought to the center after being stranded on Los Angeles and Orange County beaches in April and May.
This is the first year the CWC is doing marine mammal rehabilitation, according to a release. They previously rescued stranded marine mammals before transporting them to the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro.
The seals were kept at a temporary shelter in Malibu Canyon, built in April to accommodate these seals as other nearby facilities faced overcrowding. By housing the seals, the CWC allowed other facilities to better accommodate stranded California sea lions, which have been reaching Southern California beaches in record numbers this year, according to the CWC.
“[The temporary shelter] has actually been really working out great for us,” marine mammal stranding coordinator Jeff Hall told The Malibu Times this week. “We’ve been able to house them comfortably.”
The CWC is now searching for a place in the Malibu area to construct a permanent rehabilitation center.