El Nino expected to leave more and more sea lions stranded on shore

Roofs, storm drains, and powerlines are not the only things reeking the impacts from El Nino. Marine animals, especially sea lions, all across the California coast have been stranding on shore.

According to NOAA fisheries, as of this past June, there has been a record amount of over 3 thousand strandings of sea lions and sea pups. But that was because of an unusual warm blob of water in the Pacific, now with this strong El Nino year ahead, that means trouble.

SLEWTHS, a non-profit organization out of the moss landing marine labs, has been adopting stranded sea lions that have been deemed ‘failure to thrive’.

“They come in emaciated, the stranding centers nurse them back to health and fatten them up and let them go. And normally if environmental conditions are okay, they may be able to continue. But what’s happening now is that the environmental conditions haven’t improved,” said Dr. Jennifer Zeligs with SLEWTHS.

And because of El Nino, these environmental conditions don’t look to be improving anytime soon.

“If you combine another warm water phenomenon in El Nino with that, that could be a catastrophic effect in terms of the food chain and the availability of resources for animals,” said Zeligs.

Scientists are on edge about the unusually warmer waters in the pacific being influenced by this El Nio winter, because that influence is causing more and more strandings of marine animals.

“We’re seeing a stranding level that’s ten times the norm, of what we’d see in a normal year. So this is a very severe incident,” said Scott Kathey, with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

These warmer waters are making it extremely difficult for sea lions to find food.

“The effects of these warm water events is to drive nutrient upwelling offshore, and what that means is there’s less fish available for animals, and especially struggling animals like pups and mothers with pups, can find it very hard to find fish and stay alive,” said Zeligs.

NOAA agencies monitor the sea lions conditions to predict how they’ll be effected in the upcoming months.

“And they can predict with a great deal of precision what’s going to happen. Based on the birth weight of these animals, what’s the birth rate of the animals in the population, those sort of things, and all the indicators, unfortunately, are negative,” said Kathey.

Experts say that within the next few months there can be an even bigger spike in sea lion strandings.

Also, SLEWTHS is about to adopt two more stranded sea lion pups, leaving them with they’re hands full. SLEWTHS is planning to build a bigger and better living enclosure for these animals and is accepting donations here. Www.gofundme.com/helpthesealionsgetanewhome