news story / By Heidi Walters

Starvation

Wandering into this year’s mass sea lion die-off

(July 2, 2009)  Sunday at Mad River Beach — a long spit of sand jutting north, where the ocean roars on one side in a continuous pile-up of waves and the quiet river on the other side scallops the edge of the dunes — seemed idyllic.

Especially on the river side. Sun. Wind. Birds trilling on the bank below McKinleyville’s oceanfront neighborhoods. A friend and I walked north on the spit a long ways and then sat by the river. Soon, a couple dozen harbor seals came splashing and cavorting from the river’s mouth upstream with the tide. They passed us, a few stopping to look our way — then standing higher in the water for an even better look.

Sea lion yearling at Mad River Beach. Photo by Ken Malcomson.

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As we wandered back on the oceanside, toward the parking lot, we spotted a turkey vulture hulking over something tawny: a small, dead sea lion. We walked on and saw another heap of golden fur. “Dead — no, this one’s alive!”

The young sea lion — puppy-cute — shifted around to look at us, blinked, and then laid its head back down and rested.

My friend did a search on the Web with his cell, found the Northcoast Marine Mammal Center in Crescent City, and phoned. A woman answered. She sounded weary. Yes, she said, they’d had numerous calls from people at Mad River Beach. Yes, they would check on the young sea lion — but probably not until tomorrow, because the volunteer rescue crew had already been out all day. She explained that there was a major die-off occurring among young California sea lions, up and down the coast. She asked for a description of the animal, and where it was.

The sea lion was up on its flippers now. We left. And we came across two more small, dead, tawny heaps, eye holes freshly gaping from gull- and raven-work.

The next day, I called the center in Crescent City again and talked to the director, Monica Hiner. She said the number of reports they’ve been getting this May and June of stranded young California sea lions was off the charts. “And these are all skinny, emaciated yearlings,” she said.

The center, part of a stranding network coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, rescues and rehabilitates marine mammals between Shelter Cove and the Oregon border. Its nine pens are overflowing with 23 animals right now: four baby harbor seals and two rare species — a Guadalupe fur seal and a Stellar Sea Lion newborn — and the rest young California sea lions. In a normal year, the center might rescue 40 to 60 marine mammals in a year, of various species.

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