Pacific Marine Mammal Center

Last year my wife and daughter went to California to visit friends and family (I went to Montana.) While they were there they searched for things to do and stumbled onto the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach California. It is a small facility that is used to house and rehabilitate injured seals and sea lions so they can be released back into the wild.

This year we were all going back to California for vacation and we decided to visit the PMCC again.

In the last year they have grown and added several new enclosures. Sadly the population at the facility has grown as well. Many of the animals that are at the facility were either abandoned at a young age, were injured, or had forms of a cancer that are becoming common to the sea lions in the area.

In the Spring 2001 issue of The Newsletter of The Marine Mammal Center, Sue Spong reported that The Marine Mammal Center has found a high rate of cancer among California sea lions. 18% of those examined post-mortem were found to have cancer, most commonly in the urinary and genital tracts. This incredibly high rate of cancer could be due to high concentrations of PCBs and organochlorinated pesticides that run off of land and work its way up the food chain to the sea lion. While the California sea lion population is not endangered, this species could serve as a indicator species on the overall general health of the coastal food chains. [ sealwfy ]

We arrived just in time for the feeding and the volunteer was very eager to show us around. When we visited we saw elephant seals and harbor seals. The baby harbor seals were very young and needed to be taught how to catch fish in the water.

They also had some baby elephant seals that were a couple of months old and they already looked big. The adult male elephant seals can weigh up to 5,000 lbs.

It is a small facility and would make a good stop on your way to or from Laguna if you are visiting from out of town. They started to run summer day camps this year and my daughter was sad we don't have something like this near our home.

You can find out more about the PMMC and also make donations so they can continue the expansion via their website: www.pacificmmc.org

Here is a video of two of the young male elephant seals as they learn how show dominance (often called play fighting.)