((TITLE)) SEA MAMMALS AND OCEAN HEALTH
((TRT: 06:25))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: Marina Del Rey, California; San Francisco, California))
((Main characters: 1 female; 1 male))
((Sub characters: 5 female; 3 male))
((Blurb: California sea mammals are a favorite tourist attraction but they are also frontline indicators when it comes to assessing ocean health and the effects of pollution on humans.))
((MUSIC/NATS))
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Speaker 1))
I think they're cool. They look really friendly and I'm glad they have a place to rest.
((Speaker 2))
I think they're really silly and it's funny to watch them.
((Speaker 3))
I think they're very cute. They're napping. They're very loud. ((Speaker 4))
They kind of fight a lot.
((Speaker 5))
Yeah, they have really cool personalities, like really fun personalities. It's really fun watching them like interact with each other.
((Speaker 6))
They're better than humans because they don't destroy our environment.
((MUSIC))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))
California Sea Lions are a ubiquitous marine mammal species in the San Francisco Bay Area, and up and down the west coast of North America. They, like so many marine mammals, were hit hard more than a century ago when they were hunted. But, thanks to legislation like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, they have rebounded and they're here in large numbers now and generally celebrated up and down the coast.
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))
In late eighties, 1989, suddenly at Pier 39 over on the San Francisco Embarcadero, sea lions started to show up in great numbers, took up residence there, and now are iconic not just for the pier but for the city itself.
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))The Marine Mammal Center is an ocean conservation organization. We've been at this work for 50 years, trying to make a difference for every patient that we can treat, but also trying to learn what is affecting the ocean, what's causing these problems, and how can we mitigate those. And this five-decade journey has allowed us to do the right thing by every patient that's come our way, but also, they're like these little canaries in the coal mine. They're teaching us about what's going on out in the ocean,
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External relations officer, Marine Mammal Center))
and we are literally on the front lines of observing really dynamic ocean change. We're seeing ocean temperature changes. We're seeing movement of feed fishes, which have been present in really predictable places for great times. We're seeing species of marine mammals, like bottlenose dolphins, showing up in San Francisco Bay where we didn't used to see them.
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))
All of that is an impetus for us to be on our toes, to be gathering as much information as we can, to understand where the problems are, so that we can gather all the right stakeholders to solve those problems.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Krista Malloney
Director of Marketing and Communications, The Marine Mammal Center))
The Marine Mammal Center doesn't just work with seals and sea lions. We also work with animals like
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
Director of Marketing and Communications, The Marine Mammal Center))
sea otters, whales, dolphins. So, for example, we have a team that will go out when a whale is entangled out in the bay and work to free it.
((NATS))
((Dr. Jeff Baum
External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))

The Marine Mammal Center is a teaching hospital, the likes of which you'd find for people in any major urban setting. We're that for marine mammals. We attract scholars from around the world every year, who come to work with us because we're the largest marine mammal hospital on the planet.
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Boehm
Chief External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))

This is a place that is seeding the future of marine mammal biologists and veterinarians, and we need a lot more of us out there to help these animals.
((NATS))
((Dr. Jeff Boehm
Chief External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))

We're seeing a more and more call for our work. We've had, in the last decade, an incidence of a massive stranding of young sea lions that just weren't getting enough food from their moms when they were nursing and were coming up orphaned on our shores. We're seeing infectious agents hitting these animals in ways that we didn't see in decades past. The rate of cancer in California sea lions along the West Coast is really astounding. Of patients that come into us, one in four of the adults that we have in care, we're going to find cancer in 25%. That's a really startling figure. And disturbingly, it's correlated with legacy chemicals in the ocean. In addition, there's a viral cofactor, not surprising in cancers in general. But what is surprising is that right off the coast of very urbanized and very population dense San Francisco is a population of wildlife that is afflicted by cancer. If that doesn't give us pause, I don't know what does. And that has oncologists, who study humans and cancer in humans, looking over our shoulder at what's going on out here? What can we learn from this wildlife laboratory that's showing us this really, really frightening disease?
((NATS))
((Speaker 7))
I've always, since I was really young, been fascinated with sea life. We actually didn't even know they were here. We just wanted to bring the girls to see the ocean, see the water, and stumbled upon them.
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Speaker 8))
Well, every time I'm in town, I come to see the sea lions, and I've probably been coming for 40 years or so.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Boehm
Chief External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))


The most important thing I would ask of people is to care, to take the time to think about what's going on on this planet at this time, and what impacts they're contributing to, either positively or negatively, to the environment. It's everything as basic as how one uses their pocketbook. What are we purchasing? Are we demanding that something get delivered on our doorstep the very next day after ordering it? What's the impact of that on the environment?
((Courtesy: The Marine Mammal Center))
((Dr. Jeff Boehm
Chief External Relations Officer, Marine Mammal Center))
So I think personal responsibility and then aggregate responsibility is the answer.
((NATS/MUSIC))