9.28.2004

Japhy is actually a sea lion, and he weighs nearly 127 pounds.

He is right now lethargic and moderately underweight and has leptospirosis. You can monitor his status on the marine mammal center's website. Just click on the part that says "Current Patients".


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9.27.2004

The other day I went out on my bike for a ride. I rode one of my usual and favorite routes across the Golden Gate bridge and into the Marin Headlands. You ride up up up up up a long time up a long, switchbacked road with views of the bridge and the city looking all quiet and clean, sparkling on the blue waters of the bay. The sun was up and strong, and it was a beautiful September day here. It was in the morning, and I got up to the top of the hill and enjoyed my cruise down that mean hill and then took a detour to do some stretching and watch the surfers at Rodeo Beach. I sat on a bench and drank some water and suddenly I saw a shiny grey thing kind of floundering around in the shallow water.

I often see seals on the Pacific coast, and I think that they kind of like to play with the surfers. But this one wasn't swimming right. It just didn't look strong. I climbed down to the sand, hoisting my bike on my shoulders and getting a lot of sand in my bike shoes. I wanted to get a closer look. Sure enough, it was a seal, and he then swam over to the rocks and pulled his body up and lay it flat on the rocks, exhausted looking. He just flopped down. I thought that he was probably just sunning himself on the rocks. That is what I felt like doing at the time. He just didn't look right. So I asked some of the surfers if they had ever seen seals looking like that at that beach. None of them had.

I got on my bike and pedaled less than a mile away to the Marine Mammal Center (man i love California!). I told someone there about the seal, feeling pretty silly and like I was being overly dramatic because it was probably just a normal thing that he was doing there on the rocks. They called the Stranding team and left a message and thanked me and I rode off. Only I couldn't stand to not know for sure what became of the seal. So I went back to the beach.

There were two people already there from the Marine Mammal Center standing there and looking at the seal, who now looked pretty bad, all curled up in a ball on the rocks. I asked them if he was just doing a normal seal thing, and they said that he actually looked sick. There is some kind of bacterial infection that infects sea mammals, hitting their kidneys and leaving them dehydrated and in need of IV fluids and IV antibiotics. The mortality rate is 50% with medical intervention. The disease, curiously, seems to infect a lot of animals once every four years, and now is the time. They were waiting for rescue equipment and thanked me for telling them about him and asked me if I wanted to name him.

They snuck up on the seal and then pounced on him with a giant net, like the ones that you see people carry who catch butterflies, only it was much much bigger. He got pretty mad, and made some growling sounds and snapping motions as he was being dragged off of the rocks and onto the beach. They got him into a big crate like the ones that you transport dogs in. He was not happy about it at all. I helped them drag him in his crate up off of the beach, and they put him in the back of the truck. I looked in at him through the metal parts of the cage. His eyes were like big tear drops made of black oil on his grey fur. He smelled terrible. Like any good sea mammal should. He was spunky but resigned. Tired. I whispered to him that he would be ok.

His name is Japhy.

The Marine Mammal Center is an absolutely incredible organization. I am so happy that they exist. Right now I think that they have 67 patients. I am going to go and check on Japhy tomorrow and look into volunteering. If anyone is looking for great places to drop a little cash, I can speak first-hand and confidently declare that this place is where you want to do it. The volunteers and the people who rescued Japhy were so dedicated to what they are doing. You could tell that they love it and love the animals. And their patients eat a lot. So give them money. You could even donate to Japhy himself, my seal.


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