A toxic algal bloom has been spreading from Central to Southern California since February.
Clarissa Anderson is the director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Systems.
"This really started in Santa Barbara," she said. "The first animals that were reported were in Santa Barbara, some of them coming from Santa Cruz Island. That has been the case for the last four years. It's been the epicenter and the ground zero for these events. The next animals we started hearing about were in Orange County and also L.A. and Malibu."
Now, cases of domoic acid poisoning have increased along the San Diego County coastline.
"It wasn't until just this last week that we started to see measurements or get measurements, hits of toxin measurements at Scripps Pier and other places in San Diego," Anderson said.
SeaWorld San Diego’s Rescue Team has rescued 24 sea lions and eight seabirds showing symptoms of domoic acid poisoning. Nine of the sea lions have died.
Jeni Smith is the curator of the Rescue Program at SeaWorld San Diego.
"It seems that there are more animals that need our help — more than last year, and more than the year before," Smith said.
She explained that domoic acid is a naturally occurring neurotoxin produced by certain harmful algal blooms.
"The (algal) bloom is called Pseudo-nitzschia. Basically, fish eat the algae and then the sea lions eat the fish, and it causes the sea lions to have seizures. It affects their brain. It affects their heart," Smith said.
Smith added that SeaWorld has been receiving an influx of calls in the past week about distressed marine animals.
"They kind of look like they’re stargazing. I've heard that the sea lion looks drunk. I’ve heard so many different things. They can be abnormally aggressive. They can look just totally out of it because the toxins," Smith said.
Anderson said this year’s algal bloom is slightly different from previous ones.
"We've seen domoic acid in the water this early in the year before — it's not that unusual. But having all these animals come in this time of year is unusual, and it looks to me like it's connected a bit to La Niña. We're having an early onset upwelling, which is what fuels these blooms," Anderson said.
Smith said SeaWorld has brought in additional staff to help care for the affected animals.
"The best treatment for all of these animals is to provide them with lots of fluids and try to flush out that toxin. So that's kind of the first step, after we rescue them, we assess them," Smith said.
SeaWorld has also received calls about two common dolphins: one returned to the ocean and the other died during transport.
Meanwhile, Smith introduced three adult female sea lions who are responding well to treatment. She expects they will eventually be released.
If you see a marine animal that may have domoic acid poisoning, SeaWorld recommends staying at least 50 feet away and calling (800) 541-7325. Providing the location, animal size, symptoms and behavior is helpful.
