SEA LION SENTINELS
Laguna facility braces for new round of mammals to wash ashore
The Pacific Marine Mammal Center is preparing to care for the onslaught of malnourished sea lions it expects to wash ashore this year in Orange County in part because of warming ocean temperatures. But the center’s staff is just as interested in what happens to the animals after they return to the wild.
For the last three years, the Laguna Beach facility has placed satellite tags — battery-powered sensors attached to sea lions released back into the ocean — hoping the data will provide insight into their behavior.
Sea lion adults and pups along California’s coast encountered a difficult time in recent years as shifts in ocean currents and water temperatures resulted in record numbers of beached animals, typically, dehydrated pups.
The marine mammal center along Laguna Canyon Road rescued 538 sea lions last year, a record for the 40-year-old facility. As of Wednesday, 30 sea lions resided in the facility.
Experts speculate that warmer ocean temperatures are forcing sea lions’ normal food sources, such as squid, sardines, anchovies and rockfish, to seek deeper, colder water.
Adult sea lions either don’t find as much food, or expend more energy diving farther for fish and squid, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division. Sea lions can dive 500 to 600 feet, Melin said.
“Mothers aren’t finding as much food, so they are losing weight, thus not producing enough milk for sea lion pups,” Melin wrote in a followup email. “The sea lion pups, then, are malnourished, and they might strain themselves too much trying to find mom, thus the pups end up washing ashore.”
Underweight sea lions have entered the marine mammal center weighing 20 pounds, five pounds below normal birth weight, said Keith Matassa, the center’s executive director. Depending on the pups’ condition, center staff typically starts the animals on all-liquid diets before graduating them to solid food. After sea lions weighs about 75 pounds, the center releases them back into the ocean.
Marine mammal center staff started placing tags on half a dozen male and female sea lion pups each year beginning in 2013. Tags are glued onto the animals.
The tags provide detailed information such as a sea lion’s location, the duration and distance of its dives, and water temperature. When sea lions surface, the sensors transmit signals, which include data contained in digital codes, to satellites, some of which NOAA monitors.
NOAA experts are still analyzing data gathered via satellites from the last three years, Matassa said, adding that he will look for whether sea lions are traveling to different places to find food and compare the routes with prior years.
“I want to know how my animals are doing out there,” Matassa said.
Each tag costs $3,500 to $5,000, plus $10 to $12 a day for using the satellite. Battery life depends on how often information is uploaded to computers at the marine mammal center. Matassa programmed the sensors to upload information every other day, so a tag could provide data for three to six months.
The marine mammal center budgets one tag per year and writes grants to cover the remaining tags. McBeth Foundation, Kia Motors America and NOAA Fisheries have donated money to purchase tags in the past. The center is seeking funding for three tags this year, Matassa said.
Restrandings, an occurrence when animals treated at marine mammal centers again wash ashore, spiked in 2015 compared with prior years.
Some sea lions treated at centers in Los Angeles and San Diego counties restrand along the Orange County coast.
“However in 2015, 23 of the 44 restranded animals were PMMC animals,” Matassa said. “This leads us to more questions, but one possible obvious conclusion is that the conditions have worsened out in the environment.”
To help with the expected influx of patients, the marine mammal center staff is working out details for a temporary sea lion triage center at the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach for the second straight year.
“Huntington Beach has so many strandings,” Matassa said. “We can treat animals quicker, get them off the beach, make sure people are safe.”
Marine mammal center personnel and NOAA veterinarians will monitor sea lions’ vital signs and take blood samples, he said. If animal experts think the sea lions have adequate chances of survival, they will transfer the animals to the Laguna Beach facility.
Animals deemed too sick are euthanized, said Matassa, who hopes the triage center will open in two or three weeks.
Last year, 10 to 15 sea lion pups entered the triage center, with seven to nine eventually moving to the Laguna Beach facility.