SoCal Rescue Centers Swamped With Starving Sea Lions And Pups; Prey Species Shift/Collapse Underway
MOSS LANDING -- It's 7:30 a.m. at the Marine Mammal Center, and the sea lion pups are famished. For the past five weeks, volunteers have been desperately trying to nurse back to health more than a hundred sea lions found stranded along the state's beaches in a mystery that's threatening one of California's most lovable sea creatures.
Three times or more each day, the volunteers snake tubes filled with pureed herring and fish oil down emaciated pups' esophagi to deliver a chicken soup of the sea directly into these sickly mammals' stomachs. Covering the pups' eyes with a towel does little to stop them from locking their jaws. "It's good when they're averse to it," said volunteer Sonny Knaub, 26. "We want to keep them wild."
Each day, dog crates with sick sea lions arrive here and at four other locations from San Luis Obispo to Fort Bragg in what's alarmingly become a third year of massive sea lion pup die-offs. And if the trend continues, marine biologists warn, it could deplete an entire generation of California sea lions. One desperate and hungry pup was found Wednesday beside busy Skyline Boulevard in San Francisco, more than 1,000 feet from the ocean.
Scientists say changes in the coastal California Current have pushed fish populations farther from the sea lion rookeries in the Channel Islands, where the pups are born around June. And the diminishing number of sardines and anchovies have forced nursing mothers to switch to rockfish and squid. These changes are believed to have contributed to a lower quality of milk and higher number of malnourished pups. "These pups should still be nursing. They don't have the skills to catch food on their own," said Shawn Johnson, director of the center's veterinary science department.
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http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_27517032/sea-lions-desperate-nourishment-dying-off-alarming-numbers
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