Entangled sea lions being helped on the Central Coast
By Jake Flores
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MONTEREY, California (KSBW) — Over the past few weeks, sea lions have returned from their breeding grounds in southern California. They are showing up to the Monterey Bay in mass numbers.
Some of these sea lions are entangled with fishing lines wrapped around their neck. The marine mammal center has been out on the Monterey Wharf, hoping to untangle some of the affected sea lions.
“We were able to identify a juvenile California sea lion that had a pretty severe entanglement. The entanglement was wrapped around the top of the head and went underneath kind of what would be the lower jaw,” said Giancarlo Rulli, who’s with the Marine Mammal Center. “Our medical director, Dr. Cara Field, was able to pull up a sedative and then delivered a dart via a long rifle that hit the animal in the shoulder and then slowly released that sedative.”
The animal was netted and brought back to the marine mammal center’s triage hospital in Moss Landing.
Unfortunately, the center isn’t able to help every animal that’s entangled for multiple reasons.
“A lot of it depends on the terrain. When there’s a lot of animals that are also nearby that specific entanglement, we have to be really careful about when we’re going after the target. We don’t want to cause flushing or a bunch of animals to potentially trample over that animal and head back out to the water,” Rulli said.
Visitors and locals coming to Monterey Bay have access to these marine mammals, which are hard to find anywhere else in the world. With that comes a duty to keep them safe.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to see these wild marine mammals up close. But with that comes some responsibility. We want folks to keep that distance, enjoy, snap that photo, but don’t linger too long,”
Rulli said, while also adding the importance of reporting these issues.
“The public can help report these entanglements, and that gives our team more on-the-ground eyes of where were these last sightings so that when we get repeat calls of an individual with an entanglement that’s coming to an area over and over again, that gives our team confidence that when we respond, the likelihood that that animal will still be there is quite high. And that’s a good success rate then of being able to go ahead and make that rescue,” Rulli said.
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