Plight of Sea Lions Sparks Calls for Changes in Law

Scores of phone calls from across the country poured into California’s mammal rescue centers Monday from people alarmed that thousands of northern fur seals and California sea lions are dying on San Miguel Island.

“We got 40 or 50 calls this morning,” said Ann Bull, director of Friends of the Sea Lion Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach. “People are outraged. . . . A lot of them want to write their congressmen to change the laws so they can go out to the islands.”

Since the summer, about 6,000 fur seals and sea lions have died on the island 50 miles off the Ventura coast, because El Nino’s oceanic warming has driven away their food supply.

Although volunteers are lined up on the coast to rescue starving mammals that come ashore, federal law forbids taking the animals from the islands where they breed.

Scientists have been monitoring the death toll on San Miguel Island because it is the largest rookery of seal lions and seals south of Alaska, but are taking no steps to save the dying mammals.

In a story and photograph Monday, The Times documented how pups are starving this year because of El Nino conditions.

By law, rescue groups cannot go to San Miguel and other islands for fear that they might disturb the habitat there and remove a pup from its mother.

Although watching the emaciated sea lions and fur seals can be sad, researchers say the mortality rate is part of natural selection.

Overall, the populations of both mammal groups have been steadily increasing. Scientists believe that there are about 1 million northern fur seals in U.S. waters and 11,000 living on San Miguel Island. Estimates range from 85,000 to 180,000 as to the number of California sea lions that live there.