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A visitor to a southern California beach captured video of beach-goers fleeing in a panic two sea lions appear to aggressively charge after them -- but one expert said the animals may not have been concerned with the humans at all. Charlianne Yeyna, who posted the now-viral video to TikTok, said the chase began when a woman attempted to take a photo of a sleeping sea lion at La Jolla Cove in San Diego. "The sea lions were sleeping and were just massive on the beach and I was just watching them and this woman got really close to them,...

A pair of sea lion pups splashed and played at Point La Jolla last week, chasing each other in circles through a sheltered pool, while other pups lounged on the beach or sheltered in a crevice between rocks. Surrounding them was a crowd of visitors, cellphones in hand, some within arm’s reach of the baby marine mammals. The spur of land between La Jolla Cove and Boomer Beach is one of a handful of sea lion rookeries, or birthing beaches, on mainland California, making it a rare place to view the newborn pups with their mothers. But throngs of visitors,...

BOISE, Idaho — More than 1,100 sea lions could be killed annually along a stretch of the Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington border to boost faltering populations of salmon and steelhead, federal officials said Friday. The National Marine Fisheries Service said it’s taking public comments through Oct. 29 on the plan requested by Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Native American tribes. The agency says billions of dollars on habitat restoration, fish passage at dams and other efforts have been spent in the three states in the last several decades to save 13 species of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead protected under...

The dam straddles Oregon and Washington, and the sea lions' voracious eating there affects fish populations in both states, as well as in Idaho and elsewhere. Biologists have tried transporting the sea lions to other locations, but they just keep coming back. Other strategies, such as constructing barriers, shooting the animals with rubber buckshot and scaring them with firecrackers, have had little effect. States currently are allowed to lethally remove 93 animals each year, but fisheries managers, tribal officials and others argue that's not enough. Now, a bill that would give states the latitude to kill several hundred more sea...

A noisy stowaway woke Michael Duffy as he was docked at the San Diego Yacht Club on Saturday. The San Diego sailor woke in the middle of the night to sneezing, but didn’t think much of it and went back to sleep. He woke the next morning at 6 to a curious sea lion asleep on a bunk bed in his sailboat. In adorable video captured by Duffy, you can hear him urging the sea lion, “You gotta go, buddy” as he nudged the animal out of the boat. Once the two got to the dock, Duffy had to nudge...

At least three sea lions that washed ashore in Malibu earlier this month died of gunshot wounds, according to wildlife rescuers. Jonsie Ross with the California Wildfire Center said sea lion shootings happen every year in October when squid fishing season begins. “When the fishing season starts, October 1, yeah, we actually have documented more sea lion shootings,” she said. The process to attract the squid to the surface of the water, which involves switching on a light, also attracts sea lions. The coast off Malibu is a popular area for squid fishing. Donna Collins and her daughter were watching...

NAVY DOLPHINS’ WORK WILL BE OUTSOURCED Robots to pick up animals’ tasks, like some detection of mines Like the factory worker and travel agent before them, some Navy dolphins trained to hunt down mines are scheduled to be replaced by computers in five years. However, the Navy’s marine mammals aren’t going away. Military-trained dolphins and sea lions will continue to be used for port security and retrieving objects from the sea floor — jobs they are still better at than machines. The Navy’s $28 million marine mammal program, headquartered in San Diego, uses 80 bottlenose dolphins and 40 California sea...

U.S. Navy to ditch its dolphin and sea lions in favor of robots The U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program started back in the '60s, and the dolphins and sea lions in it help defend harbors, retrieve sunken equipment and, most dangerously, identify mines for deactivation. By 2017, the Navy wants robots to do all that, instead. The dolphins and sea lions the Navy uses really pull their weight: they're highly trained, and a team of veterinarians and handlers keep the animals primed and ready to be deployed anywhere in the world. The flip-side to that is that they're also expensive...

Complete title: Sea lion task force to weigh in on whether to kill and remove sea lions feasting on fish at Bonneville Dam The sea lion task force returns to the drawing board next week. Their task: to recommend to kill and remove sea lions feasting on endangered salmon below Bonneville Dam this spring -- or not. The controversial lethal-take policy has been on-again, off-again since first approved in 2008. The 16-member federal task force wants to hammer out issues early and avoid the problems of last November when a federal appeals court effectively blocked the permit. The task force...

Oregon and Washington have been given permission to resume removing or killing California sea lions at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, a federal agency said Friday. The decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came about six months after a federal appeals court struck down a similar permit aimed at reducing the number of threatened or endangered salmon eaten by the hungry marine mammals. ... the California sea lion population is healthy, estimated at 238,000, while wild Columbia River spring chinook salmon are listed as endangered. ... NOAA Regional Director William Stelle said new data suggest sea lions...

The state of Alaska filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an effort to stop a federal agency's plan to protect endangered sea lions by restricting fishing in the western Aleutian Islands. According to Parnell's office, up to 900 people are employed by fleets in the areas where fishing will be restricted. It says the plan would cost fishery losses of tens of millions of dollars annually, and it believes the federal agency committed procedural violations that limited input from the public and experts.

The National Marine Fisheries Service said Friday it's investigating the dead animals that drifted to shore and include at least one Steller sea lion, a species listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The rest are California sea lions. Brian Gorman of the fisheries service said it's illegal in most—but not all—cases to shoot any kind of sea lion. He says five shooting deaths in one year is highly unusual. The West Seattle Blog first reported the deaths. SEATTLE (AP)—Authorities say five or six sea lions have been shot to death near Seattle. The National Marine Fisheries Service...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Hundreds of sea lions that abruptly blew out of San Francisco Bay’s Pier 39 last Thanksgiving have apparently found a new home at another tourist attraction — 500 miles north on the Oregon coast.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) -- Some Orange County nudists are fuming over the burial of a rotting sea lion carcass on a San Onofre beach. The naturists said Tuesday that state parks officials buried the animal on the beach near Trail 6, . . . the dead animal's fin sticks out of the sand just a few yards from a volleyball court near where people still sunbathe naked. He says the stench is so overpowering

Hundreds of the animals have relaxed on San Francisco's Pier 39 for the last 20 years, attracting tourists from around the world. Only last month the pier was groaning under the weight of more than 1,500 sea lions. But now there are less than 10. visitor walks past the floating docks at Pier 39, once home to hundreds of sea lions The animals first arrived in 1990, attracted into San Francisco Bay by herring. Their numbers have fluctuated over the years with changing water temperatures and food supplies, but were at record levels earlier this year. Jeff Boehm, executive director...

A small band of sea lions that made their home on Pier 39 in weeks after Loma Prieta has ballooned to a record number in the past week. Perhaps it's a wildlife reunion to celebrate the quake's 20th anniversary next month. Regardless of the reason, the people who do the counting say they have never counted this high before. Last Friday, there were 1,585 sea lions hanging out at the pier. The experts at the Marine Mammal Center say they don't know what is behind the increase, but that they are hunting for clues. Record Number of Sea Lions Flock...

BONNEVILLE, Wash. -- Under order of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries, the trapping project at Bonneville Dam continues, with four more sea lions getting euthanized.

BONNEVILLE, Ore. – A sea lion recently trapped as part of an effort by wildlife managers to protect endangered salmon and steelhead has been euthanized.

SEATTLE - The federal government has granted Washington, Oregon and Idaho permission to kill up to 85 of sea lions a year for five years, and for 2009, that window begins Monday. Eighty sea lions have been put on a so-called "hit list" after being spotted and tagged while eating spring Chinook salmon. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago has requested two animals, but the rest of the animals that are trapped will be shot or given lethal injections. Animal activists continue to fight for the mammals, saying they're being unfairly scapegoated for depleting the salmon population. “The real issue is over...

A federal judge Thursday denied a request by the Humane Society of the United States for a stay of his order allowing three Western states to resume capturing or killing sea lions that feed on salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam. U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled in November against the Humane Society, which is trying to prevent Oregon, Washington and Idaho from killing or transporting up to 425 California sea lions over five years to relieve pressure on the spring chinook salmon run. Charles Hudson, spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, called Thursday's motion a "Hail...