Granted this was some time ago now, when I was on another crew at The Marine Mammal Center but it is another moment in time that is still very vivid in my mind that I cannot wipe away or get out of my thoughts.

            It was a Saturday night.  Another long Saturday night.  It has always been difficult to get consistent “help” on the night crews.  Particularly on the weekends. 

            It was at the end of the shift.  We were actually pretty much considered done with all the “animal care” aspects of the night.  We were just going through our final walk through to make sure all the critters were still alive and tucked away for the night.

            As I headed down one of the rows it just suddenly caught my eye that one of the pools in one of the end pens was just crimson red.  There was only one animal in the pen.  An adult California Sea Lion.  She was suspected as having Domoic Acid Poisoning and was being treated and observed based on that prognosis.

            The first thought was that she may have miscarried a pup if she may have happened to have been pregnant.  That wouldn’t have been so out of the ordinary.  One of the symptoms of Domoic Acid Poisoning is seizures.  And part of the treatment for Domoic Acid Poisoning is to put an affected animal on a Phenobarbital regiment to get the seizures under control. 

            If we are unable to control the seizures, in affect, the patient’s brain will pretty much become “fried” and will not stop firing off signals repeatedly.  This leads to behavior where the animal may start continuously biting itself or inanimate object.  It may also start eating things that would not be food such as rocks and other flotsam and jetsam debris out in the open waters.  In some female California Sea lions there is also noted highly aggressive behavior where they will start “chasing” after people when the normal behavior would be to take off in the opposite direction from any human.   

            The Domoic Acid Poisoning (known as toxic shellfish poisoning in humans) greatly affects their hippocampus (causing atrophy) in that region of their brain.  It causes memory problems as well as navigational issues within an affected animal.

            And at this time it has been confirmed that the Domoic Acid Poisoning passes the placental barrier from mom to pup.  So pups/fetuses may either be born with neurological problems or other birth defects or the poisoning and seizures alone may cause the mom to self-abort.  And in even sadder cases, mom may carry the pup to term and give birth but her brain damage may be so terribly bad that she may abandon the pup that in turn starves to death and is just left to the elements.

            Even more difficult is the same drugs being used to try and treat the female California Sea Lion and save her from the poisoning can in turn also lead to her to abort.  It is a matter of there being a “no win” scenario with however we try to treat the animal.

            But that’s just a little “back story” on one illness that has affected these magnificent creatures and continues to become more and more common and affecting multiple other Marine Mammal Species.

            As it turned out, this particular adult female California Sea Lion hadn’t aborted any pup.  It was just our first initial and most plausible explanation for all the blood.

            Upon taking a closer look, 75% of the pen floor was just covered in blood.  The sea lion was at first just tucked in a kind of fetal position herself in one corner of the pen.

            We went in to try and determine where all the blood was coming from.  At that moment we still didn’t know that it wasn’t a miscarriage.  Initially looking at her in her current position all tucked up no injuries were visible. 

            And then just as we lifted up one of her front flipper a steady stream of blood just sprayed forward.  It was completely surreal.  Internally an artery had been lacerated to the point and twisted under one of her flipper bones that had so much pressure that it had ruptured through her skin.

            It was a moment of complete disbelief.  Anatomically speaking, the artery should have been on the outer part of her flipper and not on the inside part.  When we first realized the severity of the situation, the sea lion was still very down. 

            A part of the team rushed to get a hold of one of the Veterinarians to get out to the site as soon as possible.  Another crew member and myself tried taking towels and applying pressure to the blood spraying from her flipper. 

            But again, the animal came out of its “flat” state and began to slide around the pen.  We didn’t want to let her continue to bleed to death but neither did we want to stress the animal to where she would continuously bleed all the more quickly.  

            I went to my knees at that point just looking at the poor girl pleading with her to just settle back down and rest.  I had tears welled up in my eyes.  And I cannot describe the look from this Sea Lion.  My fellow volunteer began to wretch at the sight and smell of so much blood.

            Thankfully this sea lion did calm back down and her blood finally started to clot.  The bleeding did slow and eventually stopped.  We silently washed and cleaned all the blood away out of the pen and drained the pool.

            One of the Veterinarians did make it in that night and observed her.  And again, it was determined that all we could do at that point was let her be and hope that she would just continue to rest.

            Come to find out that it was pretty miraculous that she had survived so much blood loss.  By all intents and purposes she should have been dead from bleeding as much as she had.  At the same time, Sea Lions have a special talent at shunting their blood supplies when wounded which is how some of them manage to survive and recover from shark attacks and other traumas if they are so fortunate.

            It was some days later that the head Veterinarian operated on this girl only to find out that at some point in time this poor sea lion had some kind of physical trauma to that flipper and the bone within that flipper was going necrotic which is what led to the artery slipping and getting twisted on the inside of the flipper.

            She underwent at least two surgical procedures removing necrotic bone within that flipper.  Unfortunately, in her case, the damage from the initial trauma she sustained was too great and her bones were just continuing to die.  And there was nothing that could be done to stop her bones from going necrotic. 

            When it was determined that her bones were just going to continue to die on her, it was then that she was euthanized to save her from a far more painful and agonizing death.

            But I will never forget the feeling that I had that night applying pressure to her bleeding flipper and praying for some miracle that she wouldn’t just bleed to death or the look within that animal’s eyes and just the sight of so much blood.

            At the very most we really gave it our all to give her a fighting chance to recover.  And when there was no “happy outcome” to her condition, she was given a calm and relatively painless way out.