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There are many satisfying moments volunteering for The Marine Mammal Center, but the biggest moment for most
of us is seeing a healthy wild animal being released back to the ocean. By the time an animal is ready to be released,
many people have spent a great deal of time, money and effort to get the animal ready to go back home.
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Some
mammals we rescue are not
expected to live, much less recover
enough to be released. One such
case was named Booboo, an
elephant seal
that had been severally
attacked by a shark. She had many
deep cuts
on her body, and half of
her bottom jaw was missing. At her
release, she did not want to go head
first down the ramp, as most elephant
seals will do; instead she went down
back flippers first.
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Other animals are big and beautiful, like
a male California Sea Lion named
Caligula,
who weighed 464 lb at release. This picture
is his elease after his second stay with us.
He
was a victum of a toxic algal bloom
that occurred off the shore of Central
California in the summer
of 2000. The
bloom released a toxin called domoic
acid, which was ingested by the fish that
were eaten
by marine mammals. The
toxin caused the animals to go into
seizures; by the time they arrived at the
Center, many were comatose. So far,
we have not had to rescue him again.
At his release, he was facing
the wrong way in his carrier to get off going forward, so he carefully turned on the tail gate before jumping off.
Sometimes, like in the case of Tchmil I
have been privileged to take part in
both the rescue and release of the
animal, and that makes it very special.
During the
spring of 2001 I worked at
the Harbor Seal Hospital on Monday
night shift and got to
tube feed Tchmil
and then helped him with fish school. I
opened the gate of his carrier
to release
him back to the wild, and as he left, I
like to think he gave us one last
look
before rushing to the ocean. The fur
looks odd in the picture because only
part of him is wet. The painting of
Tchmil is based on photos I took at
both
his rescue and release.
Most of the animals we help, like the
California Sea Lion and Northern
Elephant Seal, have strong populations
and their survival as a species is not
endangered. Occasionally,
we admit
an animal of a species which is consid-
ered threatened, and a successful
rehabilitation
will increase their chance
for recovery. Ritzy, a young Guadalupe
Fur Seal, was one such animal. At
rescue,
she had a net entangled around
her neck and that caused her to strand.
She was fitted with a satellite
transmitter
to monitor her movements and released
with two young female California Sea Lions, Toothpick and Daddy-O,
who were very interested in the satellite tranmitter glued on her back. It was wonderful to watch the interaction between
the three animals before they headed for the ocean. The two paintings I did of Ritzy are based on this release.
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