Sea lion found in La Jolla restaurant
SeaWorld rescuers are ‘ cautiously optimistic’ that the sickly pup will recover and be returned to the wild.
Employees at the Marine Room in La Jolla had an unexpected guest this week: A sickly sea lion pup was found sleeping in one of the restaurant’s booths.
Employees on Thursday morning found the pup, about the size of a small dog, on a seat near a window overlooking the ocean, manager Matt Caponi said. They called a SeaWorld rescue team, and the pup was awake and moving around by the time the professionals arrived.
The 8- month- old female California sea lion was malnourished and dehydrated, SeaWorld officials said. At 20 pounds, she is consid- ered a “micro pup” — meaning she is half the normal weight for her age.
The SeaWorld team took the pup to its rescue center and began giving her f luids. Animal care specialists discovered that her left eye was swollen shut.
A SeaWorld spokesman said rescuers were “cautiously optimistic” the animal would recover and be returned to the wild.
Caponi suspected the pup might have come through a back door that an employee left open earlier in the morning.
“Maybe [ she] thought we were open for high- tide breakfast, but we weren’t,” he said. “We told [ her] to come back for the weekend.”
SeaWorld officials said high tides and El Niño’s warm waters have diminished sea lions’ food supply. Forty stranded sea lions have been rescued so far this year in San Diego. In 2015, 990 were rescued.
The National Marine Fisheries Service reported that from Jan. 1 to March 8, 2015, 1,605 sea lions washed up on California beaches.