TuesdayswiththeSeals

TUESDAYS WITH THE SEALSB Y K AT H RY N A R N O L D

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y L I S A H O N D A

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Last year The Marine Mammal Center rescued 155 northern elephant seal pups, like Mauricio, shown here. That’s more than the total number of elephant seals alive at the beginning of the 20th century. They had been hunted nearly to extinction for their blubber, which was used for lamp oil. Fortunately, they received federal protection before they all disappeared. Now there are almost 150,000 northern elephant seals thriving along the Pacific Coast.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 6:00 a.m. Arriving before dawn at The Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands north of San Fran-cisco, I’m greeted by the staccato “arr! arr! arr!” of a California sea lion. Its bark echoes off the surrounding hills as if heralding the extraordinary day ahead. I don my waterproof coveralls and boots, slip on a pair of latex gloves and head out with a flashlight into the darkness to check on the animals. On this Tuesday, like every other, I leave behind the responsibilities of my everyday life to enter into what feels like another dimension, a hospital where marine mammals not humans are patients. Although I’m neither a marine biologist nor a veterinarian, I get to help save the lives of seals and sea lions. It’s uncommon that someone without a specialized degree would be allowed contact with these animals, but I’m just one of more than 950 volunteers trained by the Center to care for sick and injured marine mammals.

The Center rescues animals along 600 miles of California coastline between San Luis Obispo and Fort Bragg. Last year we picked up more than 900 animals in need of medical attention. Our patients include northern elephant seals, California sea lions and harbor seals, as well as transient species of pinnipeds and an occa-sional cetacean or sea otter. The primary reasons animals require rescuing are malnutrition, disease, gunshot wounds, shark bites, and entanglement in fishing debris.

Once an animal is admitted to the hospital, someone needs to feed it, give it its medications, and clean up after it. That’s where the volun-teers come in. On Tuesdays, I lead a crew of 30 volunteers ranging from 16 to 83 years old with anywhere from one week to 22 years of animal husbandry experience. The crew is made up of people from diverse professional backgrounds – from an actress and an airline mechanic to a re-tired metallurgical engineer and several nurses – who all share a deep respect for marine mammals and an abiding concern for their welfare.

7:00 a.m. Our shift begins formally at 7:00 am with a crew meeting to discuss our patients and the day’s workflow. This morning there are four sea lions and one elephant seal on site. The elephant seal, named Mauricio after a visiting veterinarian from Chile, was born last spring and had been weaned by his mom. Mauricio was first admitted five months ago because he weighed less than half of what he should have and was dehydrated, signs he had not yet learned to feed himself.

Initially, we fed him herring smoothies through a tube inserted into his stomach via his esopha-gus. Then we taught him how to eat fish. In the wild, an elephant seal first learns to eat by forag-ing in tide pools for small fish before venturing out into deeper water after larger prey. In lieu of this natural process, we put Mauricio through ‘fish school,’ which involved dangling herring on a string in front of him in a pool until his feeding instincts kicked in. Within two months he had gained 30 kg and was released back into the ocean. However, Mauricio ended up at the Center once again when he re-stranded three months later. He had not put on any weight since return-ing to the wild and was diagnosed with having a heavy parasite load that interfered with his ability to absorb nutrients from his food. After being treated with de-worming medicine, he’s now gain-ing weight and will be set free again in a week.

Two sea lions, Armstrong and Leffy, are slated for release along with Mauricio. Armstrong, an adult female, came into the Center with a host of problems – malnutrition, multiple infections, and paralysis of one flipper – stemming from a bullet lodged in her thoracic wall. The risk of removing the bullet outweighed the potential benefits, so Armstrong was treated with antibiotics, which cleared up the infections and paralysis. After three weeks at the Center, she is once again a healthy weight and high-spirited. She asserts her dominion by lunging out of her pool at anyone who enters her pen.

Leffy, a subadult female, was admitted with a shark bite under her left front flipper that rendered her lame. For three weeks we’ve treated her with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. Now her wound has healed and she has regained the use of her flipper. Just the opposite of Armstrong, Leffy is wary and immediately jumps into her pool when anyone comes into the pen.

The animals that are causing me the most concern today are Brave One and Hazel Ra. Brave One is a yearling male sea lion that weighed just 15 kg (about what he would have weighed at birth) when admitted two months ago with malnutrition and pneumonia. After initially show-ing interest in eating, he stopped abruptly, which has slowed his recovery. Since he quit eating, he’s had to be tube fed. Yesterday, he was offered live fish that he consumed heartily. Today our job will be to try to interest him in eating frozen herring.

7:30 a.m. Our first task this morning, however, is to load Hazel Ra, a 103.5 kg subadult male sea lion, into a metal crate and transfer him to the anesthesia pen prior to undergoing a medical procedure (pictures right). Hazel Ra, who was rescued from the dock at the San Francisco Giants ballpark, has a 30 cm long shark bite on the left side of his abdomen. The veterinary staff plans to examine Hazel Ra’s wound to determine whether the bite punctured his abdominal wall.

After we station the crate at the gate to his pen, we pause to assess Hazel Ra’s demeanor and get our first good look at his wound. It’s the worst shark bite any of us have ever seen – skin, muscle, and blubber have been ripped away exposing a couple of his ribs. Although Hazel Ra appears lethargic, when we enter his pen with our herding boards, he immediately slides into the pool. We then have to net him out of the water. Fortunately, he doesn’t struggle, but he weighs a lot, and it takes three of us to carefully lift him out and herd him into the crate.

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The primary reasons animals require rescuing are malnutrition, disease, gunshot wounds, shark bites, and entanglement in fishing debris.

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8:00 a.m. As soon as we’ve moved Hazel Ra, we turn our attention to feeding our other patients. We separate Brave One from his pen mate Leffy, thinking that perhaps he is intimidated by Leffy and won’t compete with him for food. We toss Brave One half of a kilogram of herring and wait. He eats just two fish. Not what we had hoped for, but it’s enough that he doesn’t need to be tube fed. Leffy, on the other hand eats his breakfast of herring eagerly. So do Mauricio and Armstrong.

9:00 a.m. Most days there are fluids to adminis-ter subcutaneously and intramuscular injections to give, but not today, so after we record the results of the morning feeds in our patients’ medical charts, we begin cleaning. For two hours, we hose and scrub the pen floors and scour the pool walls. It’s dirty work that can be dangerous when an animal is aggressive, but I relish it because it gives me the chance to observe our patients up close. Although our objective is to prevent animals from habituating to humans,

sometimes they’re so curious that ‘friendly’ interaction is almost unavoidable. Today, Mauricio thinks the pool scrub brush is entertaining and chases after it. His antics make me aware of just how intelligent his species is; he is clearly gauging my response as he tugs at the brush.

12:00 p.m. Around noon the veterinary team invites us to assist with Hazel Ra. They’ve already anesthesized him in the holding pen. We help carry him into surgery and lay him on a tarp on the floor then stay to watch the procedure. Almost immediately Hazel Ra’s vital signs start to falter and concerns are voiced that he may be at risk of dying under anesthesia. The vets work quickly to determine the extent of the damage caused by the shark. Ten minutes into the examination, Hazel Ra goes into cardiac arrest. Due to the severity of his wounds, the vets believe Hazel Ra’s prognosis is poor and the decision is made to euthanize him.

Even though Hazel Ra’s death from a shark bite could be considered ‘natural,’ it still hits us hard. Losing an animal is the most difficult part of

what we do. But we take some comfort in knowing that when an animal dies or must be euthanized because it can’t be healed, it lives on in our research. Hazel Ra will be necropsied, and the tissue samples that are taken will be preserved and studied by the Center’s scientists and affili-ated researchers at universities worldwide. His death will help us gain greater understanding of the diseases and medical conditions that affect marine mammals, develop new diagnostic techniques and treatment protocols, and learn more about ocean health, which affects marine mammals and humans alike.

2:00 p.m. Later on, our spirits get a lift when we offer Brave One his afternoon feed. This time, I hide behind a herding board and throw him herring one at a time. I try to make them look alive by skipping them on the water like rocks. It works, and Brave One eats them all. Hopefully this is a turning point in his rehabilitation and he will be able to be released with the others next week.

We take some comfort in knowing that when an animal dies or must be euthanized because it can’t be healed, it lives on in our research.

3:00 p.m. Once the afternoon feeds are done, we start scrubbing and sanitizing the kitchen where we prepare the feeds. By 3:00 p.m. we’re finished, and everyone leaves except me. I chart the afternoon feeds and make one last round of the pens. As I check the gate latches, I reflect on the fact that no two days is ever alike here; every day is a different rollercoaster ride. Despite having just five animals to care for, today was filled with emotional ups and downs. During the spring birthing season, when there may be more than 200 animals on site, there isn’t time for emotions or reflection. You just hop on the ride and hold on. But today there was time and space for getting to know the animals. If you saw them in the wild, you might not notice that each one is unique. But seeing them up close, their differences become obvious. Just like humans, they have distinct physical features and personalities. And they have individual needs.

I began volunteering here 12 years ago because I wanted to know what it was like to interact with wild species. My involvement soon became a catalyst for personal transformation. Learning to tell the difference between a seal and a sea lion

awoke me to the fact that I knew almost nothing about the ocean and its inhabitants, so I set off on a quest to find out more about the natural world. Somewhere along the way, the boundary separating me from other species dissolved, and I began to feel part of the greater drama happening around me. I learned that every creature evolved to fulfill a particular purpose and each has an astonishing life history. Now, everywhere I look I see stories unfolding, from the gray fox that leaves scat on my doorstep to mark his territory to the juvenile great horned owl sitting in the top of the redwood tree behind my house calling to his parents at dusk. These and all the other creatures that have become part of my expanded field of awareness have given me a life far richer than I ever imag-ined existed. I have the seals to thank for this and for showing me what it means to be truly human. For among the purposes we have evolved to fulfill is safeguarding other species.

Monday, October 6, 11:00 a.m. The moment we’ve all worked toward has finally arrived. Today, Mauricio, Armstrong, Leffy and Brave One will be released back into the ocean.

Volunteers from the Center’s Stranding Depart-ment and the Monday crew herd them into crates and load them onto a pickup truck for the 35-mile drive out to Chimney Rock in Pt. Reyes National Seashore where there is an elephant seal rookery. We hope Mauricio will find his way there and haul out onshore with other seals his age.

1:00 p.m. The animals are unloaded and lined up at the top of the boat ramp. Armstrong is the first to go. She is like a racehorse out of the gate – gone in a flash. We release Leffy and Brave One simultaneously because of concern that Brave One may be reluctant to go in the water alone. However, he beats Leffy into the ocean and the last time we see them they’re 50 yards offshore, still swimming side-by-side. Mauricio is the last to be released. Like most elephant seals, he takes his time. We have to herd him toward the water, but once he feels the ocean lapping around him, he puts his head under and disappears from sight. Seeing the animals respond instinctively to the call of the ocean is emotionally stirring. It simply feels good knowing they now have a second chance at life. WH

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The moment we’ve all worked toward has finally arrived. Today Mauricio, Armstrong, Leffy and Brave One will be released back into the ocean.

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