Sea lions are stranding themselves on a long stretch of the California coast and showing signs that they may have been poisoned by a bloom of harmful algae, experts said Thursday.
The Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute said that since July 26, it has been inundated by daily reports of sick sea lions along 155 miles (249 kilometers) of shoreline in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, northwest of Los Angeles.
The marine mammals are suffering from domoic acid, a neurotoxin that affects the brain and heart, the institute said in a statement. The poisoning event is largely affecting adult female California sea lions, it said.
The nonprofit said it had rescued 23 animals so far. Coastal Vandenberg Space Force Base released photos of sea lions being rescued from one of its beaches on July 29.
At least some of us actually give a shit these days and things are at least tried to mitigate the issue.
The Romans basically made lions extinct in Europe after hundreds of thousands of years of them being there because they liked watching them kill each other in the arena (or watch people hunt them in the arena).
We almost lost whales in the 19th century because people wanted oil to light lamps.
This is the size of an elephant herd in Tanzania in the 1950s: