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Subscribe to RSSSick sea lions are turning up in record numbers along Southern California's coastline. Director David Bard and Lauren Palmer of the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro say scientists are looking at a number of theories.
By John Boxley, Producer, NBC News
SAN PEDRO, Calif. -- Along Southern California's pristine coastline, ailing sea lions are turning up in record numbers.
"We have a lot of little pups this year," said veterinarian Lauren Palmer, who is nursing them back to health. Most are about eight months old, she said, and appear dehydrated and malnourished, having trouble adjusting to life away from mom. For some reason many pups are leaving their mothers early. It's not clear why.
Usually, around this time of year, there might be a dozen sick sea lions in San Pedro, said David Bard, operations director for the San Pedro Marine Mammal Care Center. But so far, the care center has taken in nearly 200 and counting. Last week alone, there were 50 new cases.
"It’s a pretty big spike,” he said.
The last big spike was in 2009 when the care center took more than 500 sick animals, but most of those were elephant seals. Researchers say that was due to El Nino conditions.
Looking for answers
During a tour of the facility, Bard pointed to a group of new arrivals.
"You can see the activity level of these fellows is a little low, they don’t have as much energy," he said. There were about 20 pups inside a small pen area, each looked quite lethargic.
So, what’s happening to the sea lions this year? So far nobody knows. There are plenty of theories, however, such as food shortages, climate change or simply an increase in the number of sea lion births.
"We are not seeing a disease outbreak among these animals or any obvious underlying cause," Bard said.
So, researchers continue to collect data and blood samples from the sea lions, looking for answers.
"We are very, very busy," said Palmer.
When asked if she feels overwhelmed, she laughed and replied, “Some days, yes."
And San Pedro is not alone. Last week, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach declared their organization in a “state of emergency” as it continues to see an onslaught of California sea lion pups in need of medical attention.
“We are seriously concerned about the pace at which animals are stranding, and having the resources to keep up," said Michele Hunter, director of animal care.
Pups recover with treatment
Bard, in San Pedro, says caring for so many sick animals has not only been taxing for staff and volunteers but also to the bottom line at their non-profit. But he said the Marine Mammal Care Center is committed to treating each case and responding to all the challenges, while "staying optimistic."
The biggest challenge right now, he says, is managing the dwindling budget. The animals are here for about two months at a cost of nearly $2,000 per sea lion.
There is some good news: most of the sea lions are responding to treatment, which begins with a liquid diet and fish smoothies. Later the pups are fed herring. Palmer says it's a great feeling knowing that they are making a difference and giving these animals a second chance.
Bard admits that watching them leave is hard.
"We put a lot of hard work and effort in treating them successfully, we take them down to the beach and then we see them go, probably forever,” he said. “It’s a rewarding feeling, most rewarding job I have ever held, but at the same time, it’s a little bit bittersweet."
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If the pups are leaving their mothers early, it would seem to me that the mothers can't give them enough milk altogether or enough high quality milk... or the mothers may be leaving their pups because they can't feed them enough and etc. They seem to be recovering on a good diet so there's the biggest clue. They're not sick so they must be very hungry.
Any bets has something to do with men
Hummmmmm .. Could be a coincidence , but hasn't there been a lot of the Japanese tsunami trash washing ashore for the last six months or so?
Another conspiracy theory......
Might be the water has been "tainted" by all the bales of pot thrown overboard by drug cartel members when they are being chased by the Coast Guard or a Navy ship.
Nah, "our borders have never been more secure"....Mrs/Ms Napolitanoski.
Its only happening in California, well lets narrow it down, What is California Know For. After someone comes up with that list, you can narrow it down by what makes it to the ocean. I bet you that its all the Sewege that goes into the Ocean not to mention drugs and trash.
Or could it have to do with the fact that reactor water has been spilling out of the Japanese nuclear plant since the tsunami?
A few months ago it was mysterious illness in polar bears and seals. As the radioactive water makes it around the pacific. I wonder if we will find that the whole Pacific was contaminated by the Japanese nuclear reactor spill? I get a charge out of the last comment made in one of the articles "They don't know what caused the polar Bear's hair to fall out, but it is definitely not radiation sickness". High quality propaganda I mean high quality reporting there.
Could mother sea lions have been eating radioactive fish? I would imagine that would cause them to stop producing milk.
Hope some of our nuclear supporters are taking relaxing swims in the Pacific ocean. Anyone for some bargain priced fish out of the Pacific ocean? Might want to pass a Geiger counter over it before you eat though.
Southern California's pristine coasts??? You mean with all the raw sewage coming up from TJ that requires the closing of beaches for swimming on a regular basis???
BREAKING NEWS!!!!
Barrack Hussein will make an announcement regarding this tragedy. A White House source states that the president will blame it on either the sequester, Republicans, the TEA Party, Wall Street, rich people, assault weapons, contraceptives, Fox News, tsunamis, Arab Spring, gridlock or, of course, Bush.
The source requested anonymity because of the ridiculous nature of this White House.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the way humans horribly pollute and poison the planet....
The entire planet is being poisoned; these bellweather species are just the first to show obvious symptoms.
I can't help you people if you won't listen.
Same reason we have sick forests. Over protection and the weak survive giving birth to even weaker.
If you read the story, your hypothesis is not true. Once fed, the sea lions are thriving. Nothing to do with breading weaker pups!
Sick forests? Where have you been?
No he is close to the truth, the ones that have been saved and are now giving birth completely missed the bond with mother, and lack the training to bring up pups.
The "sick forest" thing is right - our forests would be much better off if we let fires burn the way they used to. Nature adapted to periodic forest fires, which had been a regular occurrence for millions of years.
It's probably just a bunch of hungry Great White sharks doing their job.The pups will also be taken care of the way nature intended;With clubs.
leaking bull, club a helpless animal in my scope, it'll be your last
Were getting everything from Japan as the currents hit up & down our west coast, it's going to be with us for awhile...
Or maybe someone is killing the mothers out in the ocean.
Now what would kill a seal out in the ocean?It's a mystery.
Do we need to blames this on anything? If we do, I'll take the blame. I was on my way to feed the little guy's and went ____ing instead, one thing lead to another and I ____ed up(!), sorry...............
Researchers are Puzzled, Scientists are Baffled and Doctors are unable to explain.. but my suggestion is we need more Laws, Taxes and by all means Bigger Government !
Since this obviously won't affect the poor and middle class, obama is all in for having the top 2% pay their fair share in providing immediate aide to these pups.
Oil spill anyone?
No oil spill, that would be big news, they would have a reason to raise gas prices.
Global warming did it. Or maybe swamp gas reflected off a weather balloon.
The government can solve all ourproblems with gun control. lol
Thanks to all those in teabagville for their politization of an issue of which they only have a foggy grasp.
The people may actually be doing more harm than good. It is possible that there has been a severe decline in the numbers of fish the sea lions eat as food. The mother sea lions may have stopped feeding the pups because they themselves are starving. The helpers feed the babies until they are healthy and then the pups go out and reduce the number of food fish even more. Not saying this is what is happening there now but it is something that should be looked into. Sometimes humans good intentions backfire in the long term.
During a particulary hard winter during my youth in WNY, legislatures approved an additional hunting season for deer. Their rational... without thinning out the deer population it was likely that more deer would starve to death. Bon appetite hunters.
BTW - the des moines water works park also allowed an extended bow hunting season a few years back because of overpopulation as well.
These are known as good management pratices. When the carrying capacity is exceeded, lots of animals starve, and diseases thrive. Better to harvest - at least that is the rationale (and I concur).
You make a very good point, we also have seen a move by the humbolt squid out of the gulf of california up the coast.
Gosh. Gee. Maybe humans are poisoning the oceans? Ya think? Time to start paying the piper.
The oceans are huge with an ecosystem that cleanses itself.
Yes, they do , when allowed to. But we hardly give them a chance to absorb and dilute all of the garbage that we keep adding. It's clogged up, and yet we add more.
Moronic fluff crap story for the liberal morons to cry in their popcorn bowl. Just as gun control when abortions kill MILLIONS. Morons.
the above is an idiot.
No Fawna you are the idiot! He is absolutley correct!
Probably from all the radiation from the Nuke meltdown in Japan, affecting the ecosystem. That stuff does not just disappear. Manatee are dying down in Florida probably from all the millions of gallons of dispersant and oil that leaked just a thought but not a coincidence.
Another lib grasping at straws and playing the blame game.
The radiation from Japan is so diluted it can't be measured.
The red alage in Fla has nothing to do with any oil spill, It's naturally occuring and could be caused by a warm winter in Fla.
Go ahead now and blame it on global warming.
So you don't think that lethargic pups have been tested for radiation?
You don't think that the scientists in the field have tested and confirmed red tide is killing manatees?
Glad we have a Mainer to do our thinking for us . . . (okay, sarc off)
You tell them Johny the nuclear physicist. By the way, that radioactive water they pumped into our ocean will be radioactive for THOUSANDS of years. Pumping it into the ocean does NOT make it disappear. And it will be concentrated in the upper levels of the food chain, you know the game fish that we like to eat. You did not say who was having trouble measuring Pacific Radiation, was it somebody trustworthy like our nuclear regulatory commission? lol
Food for thought: Chernobyl is still there, and will be for THOUSANDS of years, all for a few years of cheap electricity. I wonder how long the concrete they pumped under the reactors will last, thousands of years? It sits on the European Aquafier, if the concrete doesn't hold it will contaminate all of Europe's water supply. I'll take global warming any day over the danger of nuclear. (the cost of nuclear doesn't even include storage of the radioactive waste, they just let it build up at the power plants) Did you know that there was a danger of Chernobyl going thermonuclear? And with all the fissionable material there, that it would have killed every human on the European Continent outright. I remember it, don't remember anyone mentioning that little fact at the time.
Sorry, I side tracked there. "Poor sea lions".
Poppycock.All media driven BS
whatever helps you sleep at night.
DUH.... has anyone thought to take a geiger counter and run it over them, for RADIATION from Fukushima? Could it be, that the Mothers of these calves could have had radiation in their milk, or the food they were eating after being weaned had radioactive particles in it? How do you treat them for "radiation sickness"??
Seems to me, that to make them "well" and then turn them back into the same environment they came out of, is a waste of money. They will only come back a little older, beach again, and die. It would be a better idea to release them into an area, where they can find non-contaminated food source, or send them to Marine Aquariums around the Country to be cared for.
They get more radiation from the sun than Fukushima.
Johnny-
Since when does the sun shower us with Cesium 137, Strontium 90 and Iodine 131? That crap from Fukishima covered the planet...sensors were going off in FRANCE not long after the meltdowns with Iodine found in rainwater. The Pacific is a waste zone. In 150+ years, it will all be good...after a few half lifes.
Robby
I am impressed with your knowledge. I am sure that the French are shaking in their boots. However the radiation would need to get into the jet stream to travel such distances and the polar jet stream would carry north of France and the subtropical jet stream would travel south of France, so to get to France it would have to travel under the jet stream which is unlikely as it would be mostly dispersed before then.
The Pacific is a waste zone? Our planet is extremely resilient and the Pacific ocean could absorb many times the amount radiation released from Japan with out any harmful effects.
Johnny: there is a sale on pacific fish caught off the coast of California, why don't you go get some? Maybe take a swim in the ocean while you are at it.
A Japanese radiation tracking club reported potentially deadly levels of radiation in down town Tokyo shortly after the melt down. The government said everything was normal. You believe what the government says, when they get their campaign donations from the nuclear industry, I find it a conflict of interest. We will know when we start having the same problems these sea lions are having.
Ken I think you hit the nail on the head. From Russia and the US as well as others testing the bombs has been appalling to drop fallout on its own citizens for years and years here in the US at the Nevada Nuclear Bomb Testing facility of which over 980 bombs were set off there in Nevada. Over 200 of these were set off at 1500 feet. They state that upper level winds had no affect on the areas that were hit by this crap. They can predict the wind directions now didnt you know that. Japan is guilty of feeding the water this fallout at its reactor meltdown. These idiots that use this stuff even our beloved fed gov, ( what a joke ), should have to pay for every instance of cancer. Every instance of it and not chosen by R.E.C.A. who gets paid and where the wind blows. What a xxxxxxx joke this fed gov is for raining any of this crap on anyone and lying about the effects of fallout. After doing much research on the affects of fallout one would ascertain that not only cancer did it cause but many many birth defects, heart disease, and many many people that were affected that are not getting paid. They also try and blame anything in the Columbia River Gorge area affected by the Hanford Nuclear Waste storage facility that were down stream in States of Washington and Oregon. Even if your city was at an elevation way above that of handford. Another joke. Water travels uphill didnt you know that? These murdering scumbags are at it again with 9/11. Its time to start our own government and leave this scum in the dirt. Illegal surveillance on you and me for no reason except for they want to. Not a need to but they want to. Scumbag fed gov needs shut down and start a new one for the people, not the one they have for Corporate idiots.
Its time for change allright people its time to rip this piece of crap out by the roots and start one for the people. They can govern their own corrupt selves and we will govern our own. Who needs scumbags to run this show. I dont I know that. Unbelievable the people that your willing to let run your life. Its time for change people and I mean a real change. They have crapped enough on us.
Humans are so intellegent
"Humans are so intellegent"
Especially the humans that can spell.
It's "intelligent"
I-N-T-E-L-L-I-G-E-N-T
also consider the bad type of algae.
I think what ever the reason we should be letting mother nature do her thing. The sea lion population is not in threatened and maybe weaning its own numbers naturally because of food supply. Or maybe the increase of sea lions is finally starting to bring an increase of sharks to eat them. Either way why is money being spent on this when they aren't endangered?
I have an answer to that. It's about money. Long ago we found out the hazards that come from getting involved in saving wildlife, even when the intentions are really for the best. Unfortunately we found that you could raise enormous amounts of money from it.
Radiation mutates evolution. Its' half life could take over 100 years to lessen the potency by half in some elemental isotopes and is carried in mothers milk easily. It may disperse in ocean waters, but it does not go away.
What was done was the right thing to do, even if they just get eaten by a shark.
You already have exposure to levels that would take 100 years of decay, 80 days is a good number for decay rates that would be considered to be not immediately life threating, although exposure still causes cancer and thyroid problems, which are especially problematic for children.
I am personally releasing poisons like cleansers, shampoos, motor oil, etc. into the environment, killing all kinds of life. I am human and will not make any changes because I am superior and able to not care about other species or other humans. I am chinese!
Oh I see what you did right there, funny thing is everyone knows from your name that you are a NY'er, and yet everything you said still fits.
It is a toxicity of the ocean waters... with all the plastics, garbage, oils, radiation, pollutants, dead bodies, and rising ocean temperature... makes for a hard place for young ones to grow up in. I will never understadn why people/businesses use the ocean for a garbage can???? They have used coean water to replace lost blood in wars for it is so very like ocean water... but today we would probably die from that as our oceans are out of balance and becoming toxic... soon it will affect all people world wide. Three years tops...
it is the oceans toxic state... more so closer to the shores right. It is a combination of all the garbage dumped, plastics, metals, wastes, dead bodies, metals, radiation, rising ocean temperatures, that come from thoughtless humans! Why people think they can use the ocean for a garbage recepticle is beyond me.
In wars we have used pure ocean water to preplace lost blood. Our blood contains all of the minerals and trace elements that the ocean holds. Yet as we change the oceans composition, we threaten all life forms. WE have three more years and the oceans toxic state will be adversely affecting us. THREE YEARS only. These pups are our warning. I am so glad to see they are being revived. Please donate to those organizations!! Thank you!
Everyone talks about Fukishima like it was something that happened and is over, not so. It is still spewing poison into the atmosphere and has been every single day since it happened. They are pumping millions and millions of gallons of radioactive poison directly into the ocean every single day. It doesn't just go away, you know! It amazes me that people seem to think it's been contained or cleaned up and now it's gone. It has just passed the 2nd anniversary, and it's still just going and going and spewing and spewing and nobody mentions this anymore.
Most likely due to climate change. Less upwelling of nutrients which leads to reduced numbers of fish like anchovies and mackerel - their food supply is shrinking.
I would wager there are environment issues at the root of the problem -- but we will sit back and say, no -- because it is convenient ...
Yup, it is easier to be an ostrich that to face up and own our stuff. There are people who don't believe in global warming, or that there is too much carbon in the atmosphere, because they can't see it with their own eyes. And yet they don't believe in chem trails, even though they are clearly visible, i.e. nothing like a normal contrail.
The poor sea lions.
Think of the poor sharks! No sea lion for you tonight!
What? Did everyone forget about BP?
Pollution!