The Pinniped Affair
It’s hard to believe there was a time I couldn’t have even guessed the meaning of the word, “pinniped.” Since 2001, I have spent most of my Sunday afternoons in the company of the creatures with that lofty appellation. I know I’m in love.
Although I can’t claim it was love at first sight, there was a definite attraction I felt when I wandered into a marine mammal rescue center on my way to somewhere else. As the docent on duty explained facts about the animals I saw that day, she mentioned she was a volunteer. I actually felt a thrill run through me when she said that. And I signed up. The duties of an animal care volunteer seemed just too energetic and risky given my slow reaction time and no health insurance. I thought I could perhaps handle a docent’s job of greeting visitors, explaining about the animals, and doing presentations for groups such as scouts and school children.
Given the natural patterns of seal and sea lion rescue, the center’s busiest time is usually in the spring and early summer. Slower months allow more time to read up on pinnipeds, ask questions of the staff, and just enjoy being in the sun and company of whichever patients we have at the time. Gracie, a beautiful, large, misnamed male Great Egret, usually hangs out nearby waiting opportunistically for fish at feeding time.
I have gone from not having a clue as to the differences between seals and sea lions to telling people how to distinguish our three main groups of patients — sea lions, harbor seals, and elephant seals. I have become acquainted with some of the staff, who are also mainly volunteers, and have come to understand why they choose to spend their leisure hours cleaning out pens and risking being bitten by ungrateful patients. I have discovered a different group of people than I had known before.
The patients are named by the rescuers according to the seasons, holidays, where they were rescued, movie heroes, current events, size, and personalities. Sometimes we go through periods of naming them according to themes such as different types of cheese or fashion designers.
The names are not given to them so we can “talk” to the animals. These are wild creatures, and they will be returned to the wild when healthy again. Bonding to humans is not a goal and definitely not preferable for these animals to whom people usually mean trouble, pain, pollution, and even death. Although some pinnipeds are attacked by sharks and killer whales, their most fearsome enemies, both directly and indirectly, are humans.
There have been a handful of exceptions to the “no touching, talking, cuddling” rule. These have been sea lion infants whose mothers died from domoic acid poisoning. Following the food chain, algae (small marine plants) are eaten by fish like sardines and anchovies and then in turn are ingested by pregnant sea lions who eat voraciously in the springtime before giving birth in the summer. Why certain types of algae sometimes produce this poisonous domoic acid is still being studied, but there is research and evidence of the human factor that contributes to nitrates and phosphates ending up in the sea. Sadly, the domoic acid toxin accumulates as it moves up the food chain and often these pregnant females suffer permanent brain damage and death as a result.
Since the sea lion mother normally has a close, intimate relationship with her baby for eight to twelve months, the infants simply die without deep bonding. And so we have hand-raised, cuddled, bottle-fed, and played with these infants. But, since we are not able to teach them how to survive in the wild, we raise them for about six months and then find a permanent zoo or wildlife park for the rest of their lives.
Over the years, I remember several animals as individual personalities. Summer was brought in looking exactly like the starving sea lion in one of our posters. Every rib poked out of her pathetic body. Parasites and worms had robbed her body of nutrition. Slowly she came back to life again and was returned to the wild looking like a poster sea lion for “happy and healthy.”
Barry proved to be a very unusual adolescent male sea lion. Cruelly injured by being caught in fish nets, he needed time to heal. Usually, male sea lions pay no attention to playful young sea lions. But Barry was different. He became a big brother to a rather rowdy group of young sea lions who liked nothing better than climbing all over Barry. We could observe the involved, joyful way he communicated with the young ones. At some point, the caretakers knew he had had enough playtime for the afternoon, and would put him in a pen of his own to rest.
Little Tyke was a harbor seal that lost her mom before she learned how to fish. After being force-fed, she didn’t seem interested in learning how to fish for herself. Patiently probing the child psychology of a pinniped’s mind, our staff tried various ways of giving fishing lessons to Little Tyke. Eventually, Little Tyke got the hang of swallowing a fish (pinnipeds don’t chew their food), but had no interest in “catching” it. Since we feed them dead fish that can’t move, the staff tied a string to the fish to make it wiggle in the water. Little Tyke became more interested, but was frightened to put her head deep into the water in the big pool.
What to try next? A kiddie wading pool was the answer because Little Tyke eventually dared to put her head into the shallow water to scoop up the fish.
Because Little Tyke was so young when she came to us, she stayed a couple of months beyond the usual two or three. After five months, she was released with another harbor seal who had become her friend. Her recollections of the open sea were few and long ago because she had only spent about two weeks in the wild. When she was brought close to the sea, and her kennel door was opened, she only tentatively came out. Overwhelmed, she stuck like glue to her buddy. With several looks back at us with confusion — and did I detect excitement? — she followed her bigger adopted brother. We hoped she’d be as happy, healthy, and well fed as she had been with us. I can’t deny a lump in my throat.
To be continued……
Tags: rescue center for marine mammals; domoic acid; seals an, Travel
