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PINNEPEDS IN PERIL

Second Chances Animals: Center rescues sea mammals found along Ventura County beaches. The creatures, starving and sick, are being nursed back to health. By Lisa Fernandez Special to the Times Ventura—They washed ashore on Ventura County’s beaches with last weekend’s rain—19 seal and sea lion pups starving and sick from the famine that has struck the Channel Islands. Deserted by their mothers, who are swimming farther and farther in a desperate search for food—the pups are being coddled by volunteers intent on nursing them back to health. The majority of California’s pinnipeds breed on the Channel Islands. The most heavily populated spot is San Miguel Island, 50 miles off the Ventura Coast.

This year, El Niño’s warming of the ocean is causing food shortages for California sea lions and northern fur seals living on coastal islands. The famine has killed 6,500 pups on San Miguel Island off the Ventura County coast. Mothers must spend longer periods away from their young to hunt for sardines, squid, herring and anchovies that are finding refuge in colder, deeper waters. When stranded animals reach the beach, many are taken to the Fort MacArthur Marine Mammal Rescue Center in San Pedro. Those found North of Ventura County are shipped to the Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center. In a normal year, volunteers might take care of as many as 300 sick animals. But this year, based on numbers gathered from previous El Niño years, they may care for as many as 800 animals.

“Pinnipeds in Peril” Mike Blount and Moni Olguin USC CSP Leadership Cohort – Summer 1998