so I think right now one of the sea
lions that came in is injured so this
one has a flipper injury that is cut is
cut all the way the length of her
flipper um and it got infected oh that
looks
bad so this is all Scar Tissue
granulation tissue okay but see these
little divots yeah that's where her
joints are and that's where it's deep in
there and so that's be able to put my
leg in front of that or not
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Calfornia is one of the most incredible
marine ecosystems on the planet and one
of the most famous animals in that
ecosystem is the California sea lion
I've come off the coast of Catalina to
do a dive at a sea lion Rookery and
while the animals here seem to be doing
pretty well just 20 mil Inland Surfers
divers regular beach goers have been
noticing a really disturbing trend line
thousands and thousands of baby sea
lions have been showing up sick and
emaciated on the
shore in December this past year six sea
Lian pups began beaching themselves in
record numbers throughout Southern
California according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
the number of California sea lion
strandings for 2015 alone surpass the
total number of strandings combined from
2004 to
2012 although marine mammals can become
stranded for a number of reasons
scientists believe that warming ocean
temperatures and changes in prey
availability are likely contributors to
this unusual spike in deaths and as
mothers are forced to travel further
offshore to find food many pups are left
to fend for themselves before they're
ready
we came out this morning to walk the
beaches and just see if we could find
any of the stranded sea lions and as we
were walking on the beach here in Malibu
uh we found this one this dead one
floating in the surf zone it's too late
for this guy so we're going to hook back
up with the Wildlife Center who's been
getting calls all morning about other
sea lions that they're going to go out
and try and Rescue
will you tell me what you were telling
me again about why he's coming up sure
so when they're they're so Mal nursed
and underweight like they are right now
they get cold really quickly they have
no energy so they want to be out of the
water to rest and to warm up all right
so what what do we do now I'm going to
try a nut in are you helping
yeah hey buddy that's okay that's okay
buddy that's okay that's okay yeah I got
kind of like scooch him down way which
way he's going to go into the net into
the net he's biting onto the net let go
there if I see it we're going to flip it
like this okay and then actually lay it
down and you move them onto it it makes
like a little hammock oh nice pick it up
like that oh little sea line hammock
little Seine hammock all right buddy
it's going to be all
right um so he's definitely very skinny
I can see hip bones right
here and how often are you doing this
we're getting right now anywhere from 40
to 50 calls in a weekday and close to
100 on
weekends thank you for faing him what he
still alive yeah he's alive yeah he's
good he's very feisty
okay all right that's the first one of
the day oh he's shaking yeah cuz he's
cold uh it could be cold it could be
stress it's a very stressful experience
like the whole rescue and Rehab process
is actually very stressful for Animals
you know they're not used to people
they're not used to being around people
they're still wild
animals we spent hours with Colleen
cruising up and down the coast
responding to calls of abandoned pups
Colleen normally a Marine Mammal
biologist living in Oregon came down to
Southern California to take up a
temporary position with the California
Wildlife Center and help with the crisis
what what are the root causes of the
problem besides the fish I mean what
what's causing the the warmer ocean
temperatures is there some causal
relationship we can draw that's the big
question that we don't really know um it
is an elino year but it's a weak elino
it could be a larger ocean cycle thing
that we just don't understand yet it
could be climate change related it's
just that's the big question is what's
causing these warmer temperatures and
you know that's pushing all the fish
really far offshore but when you see all
these sea lion pups coming up on the
shore that's an indicator that the
larger ecosystem is unhealthy yeah so
sea lions and marine mammals in general
are what we call an indicator species
especially with the sea lions when they
show up on the shore and there's
something going on with them you know
that there's something happening out in
the water that maybe we we can't see or
we just don't know what's going on there
yet and so you're coming out here and
rescuing as many pups as you can is
there a broader solution and if so who's
working on it I don't know if there
really is a broader solution because we
don't know the root cause and so you
know it's it's kind of at the local
level we can address the symptoms but
the Federal level is where you have to
address the the problems and so maybe
looking at climate change issues or
fishing issues and interactions what's
causing this problem and how do we fix
it how do we address it and make sure
that it doesn't happen again next year
or the year after once the pups are
taken off the beach they're taken to a
wildlife center for
rehabilitation but with so many pups
stranding almost all of the shelters are
at full
capacity we just arrived at the rescue
center and they brought in several new
pups and there's one right here that is
so emaciated that they're going to
actually use a feeding tube to feed it
how much danger is this animal in I mean
how sick is this animal uh they're
pretty sick I mean they're really if you
see now you know they they don't
struggle very much right now they're
sodium eated and dehydrated so we're
giving them fluids first and so what
she's doing she's getting the the tube
uh through their mouth past their
trachea okay all the way to their
stomach she just wants to be sure that
she's in the stomach and not in the
lungs before she gives the
fluids these are electrolytes it's
helping to rehydrate them and then when
she's done she's going to pinch off that
tube so no fluid comes back
out and then she's
done so all the ones that first come in
they're so dehydrated that they get
several rounds of that first and then we
start putting them on just a kind of a
weak recovery meal but once they are
feeling better and you know they've had
some nutrition and they've been here for
a couple weeks then they're a lot more
of danger to themselves than us because
they start biting each other start
coming after us whenever they think we
have food we have to be careful not to
get them used to
us we're going to go ahead and feed this
pen these are our best eaters these are
the ones that should be released this
week so they know how to eat they know
how to jump in the water and fight over
fish so we're basically just the stage
where we're fattening them up and as
soon as they get up to a good body
weight they're out the door so the
doctor was saying these guys got to get
up to 20 lb they have to get up to about
50 lb you got a lot of gear you got like
these shields you look like you're doing
a cell extraction things get kind of
crazy uh when we go in there to feed
they just want the fish they're not
they're not after us but it just helps
us get in give them the fish and get out
a lot easier yeah and your your concern
is getting bit obviously uh yes they do
bite they do get excited around feed
time and he is holding a fish so they're
going to go after that fish and if your
hand's there he'll take that
too these are pups these are very small
animals but they still have a good set
of teeth on them uh you certainly don't
want to get bit real dirty mouths here
rock and roll here you
go there you go I'll take that some on
the deck for him all right so most of
these guys are eating well in the pool
that's exactly what we want to see
there's one of them that's a little shy
he might be getting bullied by the
others that's okay we'll feed him on the
deck for now so how many times a day
will you do this uh this goes on three
times a day and how many uh seaes do you
have here uh today we have 23 in house
our capacity is 25 so we're right almost
at about of our capacity okay and then
so if there's more rescues in Malibu
what happens if there's more rescues in
Malibu what we'll do is we'll bring them
in here uh we'll give them some fluids
and we'll call around to see if the
center in San Pedro can take them or not
if for some reason they can't go down
there we could relocate them to a safer
Beach uh we could hold them overnight
and try again tomorrow uh there are a
lot of animals that are on the beaches
that are not getting picked up there's
just way too many animals for the amount
of centers available right now including
us we we are full and what have you seen
something different this year as opposed
to last year like just a lot more
extreme um we just are seeing you know
more pups than we've seen in the past
decade uh come up stranding and like
five times the normal amount so it it's
a it's not just a little bit more it's a
lot more and the survivability of
animals like if you bring them in like
how do their chances improve I mean
everyone that we bring in will die if we
don't bring it in this year it's been a
pretty rough year we've lost about half
the animals about 50% are so
malnourished that by the time we bring
in some are dead before we even arrive
through our door so it's there on death
door when we get them and then these are
the lucky uh the lucky 23 that are left
out of all the ones that we picked
up right now they're taking the weakest
smallest most frail animal they have uh
they can't eat a regular fish regimen so
they mash up and blend up basically a
fish smoothie and they feed it to her
via a stomach tube after that they put
her in the pool uh let her calm down a
little bit and they give her her one
fish ration for the
day yeah I got
this I'm here
little so 20 lb oh so she's basically
still learning how to eat fish
yes I'm sorry I can't watch this
anymore come here I know you want your
fish you can tell the animals are really
sick when you see a sea line pup that
can't eat a little half a fish um it's
pretty sad There we
go Mike what's the cost associated with
all of this there's a lot that goes into
taking care of these guys it's very
expensive there's fish there's the water
there's the Staffing I mean there's the
facility a break it down per animal um
honestly I don't know it would be
probably a couple thousand per animal
who's covering the cost for you guys uh
basically our donor and there's a lot of
volunteers that work here there's a few
government grants that we get but it's
mostly
donations so I think right now one of
the sea lions that came in is injured uh
so Dr Tom here is going to do a a minor
surgery on one of the flippers so this
one has a flipper injury that is cut is
cut all the way the length of her
flipper um and it got infected and she's
got some infections near the joints and
so we're using a honey we're putting
honey on it putting a like a bandage and
a support oh that looks
bad this actually looks good this pink
so this is all Scar Tissue granulation
tissue okay but see these little divots
yeah that's where her joints are and
that's where it's deep in there and so
that's put my leg in front of that or
not what what's the purpose of honey uh
honey has a lot of uh antibiotic
properties that osmotic gradient uh
prevents bacterial growth and it also
helps vessels form yeah wish it doesn't
like that this it is doesn't like being
held yeah it is isn't a painful thing
it's a don't mess with me thing are you
splinting it right now yes
yes of the ones that are coming in
um you know what how long do you rehab
them um I guess it it all depends on
their size and if they're still sick so
some of them have some of them had a
really bad pneumonia coming in right
some of them have a lot of abscesses and
some of them are just emaciated and so
those are the ones we just need to you
know just fatten them up and get them
healthy again and get them back
out into the
van so she immediately went back into
the pool in the pool yeah she always
likes to go in the pool I think it's
uncomfortable so she just wants to go
where she feels you know safe it's more
comfortable yeah
the next day we went back to Malibu to
see the California Wildlife Center
prepare four sea lion pups for release
back into the
wild once the sea line pups were tagged
and put into crates we headed down to
Nicholas Canyon Beach to watch the
release this is the final part of the
process so after taking these uh four
pups in almost 2 months ago feeding them
re rehabilitating them they're now at a
sufficient size and weight um and
they're eating well enough where they're
going to reintroduce them into the wild
um so these are the four success stories
um they're going to open the cages
they're going to head back out into the
ocean and hopefully be strong enough to
survive in the
wild tell me about today uh well today
we got four sea lion pups they're all
about 9 months old and they should be
ready for the ocean again so we picked
up about 2 months ago and they were very
skinny very emaciated malnourished
dehydrated in really bad shape and um
today they're looking pretty good so we
got them back to health and this is the
goal so hopefully they'll do all right
out there right and I mean this is this
is it right this is a happy day for
these guys this is it they're going to
head straight for that water and uh they
probably can't wait to get back in that
salt water so what you're going to do is
stand between the kennels and just
open okay we'll have four people you can
pick whichever animal you like okay
everyone good good St on three 1 2
3 come on
friend rescued rehabilitated and finally
released into the wild this small group
of baby sea lions were given a second
chance at life in their natural
habitat but with more than 3,100
strandings this season the fate of other
pups Still Remains s
unknown and as long as ocean
temperatures keep rising and food
sources continue to move further
offshore baby sea lions will struggle to
survive along the California coast
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