In other signs of distress:

Starving Sea Lion Pups Still Washing Up by the Hundreds in California

There’s no indication the ocean plans to stop littering Southern California’s shores with the tiny bodies of starving sea lion pups any time soon.

For three months, these frail animals have been found stranded along California’s waterfront. As of Apr. 4, roughly 1,100 pups have entered marine mammal rehabilitation centers in the area. They likely represent a fraction of the animals in trouble offshore.

“We’re still getting strandings of animals at kind of equal rates to what they had been,” said Sarah Wilkin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine mammal stranding coordinator for the state of California. “We don’t know how long the event is going to go on.”

Last week, NOAA declared the mass stranding an “Unusual Mortality Event.” Now, teams of investigators are assembling, ready to tackle the mystery surrounding the event. So far, no one knows what’s causing the sea lion pups to starve. The magnitude of the stranding resembles what has been seen during El Nio years, when warm waters cause ocean productivity to decrease and the sea lions’ food supply to disappear.
But there hasn’t been an El Nio event in years.

At this point, centers from Santa Barbara to San Diego are at capacity. In the past two weeks, pups not in need of critical care have been left for observation on the beaches until space opens up in a rehab center.

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