Science & Technology

Starving Sea Lions Continue Washing up on Calif. Shores

More than 1,000 taken in so far

|

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."