Harbor seals in La Jolla, California are in extreme danger because of an ill-conceived plan by both the San Diego City Council and the Federal Government.

Recently, the city council removed both the protective barriers and the signage surrounding ‘Children's Pool,’ a unique tiny ocean cove in which seals have been resting and raising their young for decades.

And there are now plans to dredge this pool, and deprive these seals of their home, regardless of the fact that this action will violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The Children's Pool is one of the few remaining suitable mainland seal rookery sites in southern California, and it provides visitors to La Jolla the unique opportunity to witness the natural behavior of docile marine mammals that have suffered terribly at the hands of man.

Approximately 200 of these grayish-brown harbor seals inhabit Children's Pool Beach in La Jolla.  And each spring, seal mothers give birth to their pups at its tiny white-sand cove.  Twenty-four seals were born on the beach this year.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in North America, these marine animals could be found at rocky coves, estuaries, and sandy beaches throughout North America - by the hundreds of thousands.

Settlers to the New World soon began slaughtering harbor seals for their oil, and later for a five-dollar government-issued bounty.

A ‘Seal Rock’ depicted in an 1887 map of La Jolla is located where the existing seawall at Children's Pool Beach now stands. By the time the seawall and the small beach were artificially created in 1931, commercial hunters had nearly wiped out the entire West Coast population of harbor seals.

In 1957, due to commercial hunting, the status of both seals and whales along the coast of the Californias appeared to be so dire that Carl Hubbs, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher, warned that if marine mammals were to recover, their habitat had to be protected when they came on shore to breed.

Thanks to the extensive and diligent lobbying of Hubbs, Mexico soon established reserves for whales, seals, and dolphins throughout the Baja, California peninsula, while efforts to protect these animals in the state of California lagged far behind.

Today, the only locations south of Santa Barbara where harbor seals give birth are at the San Clemente and Coronado Islands, and at the Children's Pool Beach in La Jolla.

After the Chevron-Texaco Corporation completes its planned liquefied natural gas terminal adjacent to the Coronado Islands, and when La Jolla dredges up Children's Pool Beach, San Clemente Island will be the only harbor seal rookery remaining in southern California.

Scientific research on harbor seals demonstrates that dredging Children's Pool Beach and opening it up to human use will have drastic implications for the future survival of these seals.

In many cases, when harbor seal mothers that have recently given birth are disturbed, they eventually abandon their pups.  And these pups have very little chance of surviving on their own.

A very boisterous group of California residents resent these harbor seals for inhabiting Children's Pool Beach.  Apparently, they simply cannot find any other beach in all of southern California that is suitable for their own use.  And they truly covet this tiny parcel of ocean-front property.

In March 2003, nine swimmers were cited by federal wildlife agents for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 after they swam into the cove, forcing the seals, including some females nursing their young, to stampede into the water.

This past summer, numerous anti-seal advocates showed up at the Children’s Pool with hand-made signs declaring "Beach Open for Humans" and haughtily planted huge beach umbrellas in the sand in areas previously claimed by the seals.

Numerous arguments have erupted on the beach between seal advocates and those who favor more human beach access.

And numerous scuba divers are now delighted that they have gained access to the seal rookery, and they snidely scoff on Internet Chat Rooms about an old man running around the beach trying to chase them off.  They have dubbed him, ‘The Crazy Old Seal Protector.’

These anti-seal activists have convinced government officials that harbor seals are to blame for the declining ocean water quality in the region.

And the San Diego City Council doesn’t appear to care or understand that marine scientists blame humans, and not harbor seals, for the alarming degradation of both our coasts and our oceans.

And, unbelievably, some of these anti-seal activists are also insanely blaming these seals for the recent increase in shark attacks against humans.

Simply stated, shark attacks are now on the rise, and will continue to rise, since we are increasingly over fishing our waters and increasingly decimating many of the shark’s primary natural food sources – including harbor seals.

I wonder what these geniuses think the sharks will dine on when we eradicate all the seals?

But maybe I don’t give them enough credit; maybe they’re already drafting a plan to eliminate all the sharks in the Pacific Ocean, too.

It would be both a serious mistake and a grievous crime to damage and destroy one of the few remaining harbor seal rookeries in Southern California.

One only has to spend some time there observing children squealing with delight as they eagerly watch mother seals fervently protecting their newborn pups to realize that Children's Pool Beach is truly both a wonderful wildlife sanctuary and an excellent wildlife learning experience for our offspring.

It needs to be permanently protected and permanently donated to the once nearly extinct population of harbor seals that now call it home, not handed back over to animal-hating humans.

I’ve been to the Children’s Pool quite a few times myself; and I have seen both adults and children delightfully watching these seals, and delightfully marveling at their antics, in this tiny, somewhat protected, natural habitat.

Since the City's decision to remove seal protection began in September 2004, reports have already been flowing in of frequent harassment of, and injury to, La Jolla's seals.

According to one recent report, two young men deliberately and viciously slashed a seal at the cove with a knife and quickly drove away.  Other sightings of seals with deep wounds - gashes inconsistent with natural injuries like shark bites - have recently been reported at the rookery, too.

The seals living at the Children's Pool in La Jolla are beloved by many tourists and local residents alike. And a survey of local school children found that they preferred to have harbor seals cavorting on this small section of beach, rather than people.

The decimation of these harmless marine animals because of the City Council's inhumane and inconsiderate actions will be a tragic loss for future generations of nature lovers, and it could have dire consequences for future ocean swimmers as well.

It is truly time for everyone to start taking more aggressive positive action on behalf of our nonhuman neighbors all over this planet – before it’s far too late.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Contact the National Marine Fisheries Service and San Diego Councilman Scott Peters (who is responsible for this district in which the seals are being harmed). Urge them to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and put back the protective barriers at the Children’s Pool - urge them to prevent people from harassing and harming these seals - and urge them to develop a plan to designate this area as a ‘Protected Seal Reserve’ – not to dredge it up and destroy this innocent population of marine animals.

1. Cathy Campbell of the National Marine Fisheries Service, Southwest Region Email: Cathy.E.Campbell.noaa.gov 
   
2. La Jolla Councilman Scott Peters
   Email: ScottPeters.sandiego.gov