LONDON: Over the past three months around 1600 young sea lions have been stranded on California beaches. The past week it was announced that Sea World San Diego would shut down its live sea lion as well as otter shows so that six of its trainers may participate in the massive rescue effort.
According to wildlife experts the unusually warm waters off the California coast have been driving sardines as well as other fish away from the coast.
The sea lion pups are reaching the coast after swimming away from the channel islands where the sea lions breed. Due to food shortage, adult sea lions spend most of the time away from the pups who go in search of food on their own.
The sea lion pups are so young and underfed that they cannot hunt and dive deep. They cannot swim far.Estimate how many of the animals have been lost at sea. It is also true that hundreds of sea lions who are making its ashore, no help is available as wildlife officials are overwhelmed.
There are so many calls, we just can’t respond to them all. The reality is, we just can’t get to these animals,” Justin Viezbicke, of the NOAA said.
This is happening for the third time in a span of five years that an abnormal number of sea lions have come shore along the California coast.
Dr. Viezbicke of the NOAA says that out of all the animals around 720 are being treated while the rest were either dead when found or had to be euthanized as they were too sick to be treated.
“What’s scary is that we don’t know when this will end. This could be the new normal—a changed environment that we’re dealing with now,” said Dr. Shawn Johnson, Director of Veterinary Science at The Marine Mammal Center, in a statement.
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