Spencer Parker has never seen so many dolphins stuck in over 20 years as a lifeguard in LA County.
Since he started in 2002, it has only been twice before this year that he saw them land. However, there have been four in the last two weeks.
Now that things are getting so bad, the Roun County lifeguards have begun their mental health days off as poisoning and killing marine life from San Diego to Santa Barbara is killing algae Bloom.
“We are human, we have feelings, we are interested in marine life, and that’s one of the reasons why we chose this profession,” said Parker, captain of the county fire department’s lifeguards department. “When these dolphins and sea lions come to the shore and they are still alive, we do our best to make them comfortable, sometimes it doesn’t work, and it’s a sacrifice.”
The worst damage to algae appears to be in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Some experts suspect that the January fire leak may have made Bloom worse. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the first effects of Bloom began to appear off the coast of Malibu around February 20th.
Since then, Bloom’s impact on wildlife, including sea lions and dolphins, is “the worst we’ve ever seen that we’ve ever had to respond to…and there’s no end before us,” said John Warner, CEO of San Pedro’s Marine Mammal Care Centre.
Members of the West Coast Marine Mammal Strand Network are investigating a minced whale that recently died in Long Beach Harbor. Respondents are eligible for NOAA Fisheries License to approach marine mammals. Others should leave a safe distance.
(NOAA Fisheries/West Coast Marine Mammal Streen Network)
Algae flowers can form due to low water circulation or after weather events such as drought, floods, and hurricanes and can grow quickly in warm, nutrient-rich water, especially if they are loaded with phosphorus and nitrogen. As they grow, they can sap oxygen water, kill marine life, hurt commercial fisheries, and poison food chains for animals such as sea lions.
Flowers that are currently wreaking havoc off the coast produce neurotoxins called domain acids. This accumulates in small fish, such as sardines and anchovies. The small fish are then eaten in large quantities by marine creatures, including sea lions and dolphins, and become addicted to them.
Domo acid from the harmful algae bloom can cause animals to have seizures, stomp heads and become coma in motion known as the “starry sky.” Without warning, they can also charge and bite, aggressively.
Algae blooms occurred in 2015, 2022, 2023 and 2024, according to the California Marine Conservation Council.
But this year, Bloom says experts are the worst. Warner said the animals arrived in “terrifying shapes” and have a higher mortality rate than in the past few years.
In March, a “wild, almost demonic” sea lion attacked a Ventura County surfer. This month, whales died in Long Beach and Huntington Beach from toxins, causing dozens of Pelicans to become ill and their descendants were on the verge of starvation.
Newt Likier will feed more than 70 sick brown pelicans at the Huntington Beach Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center after helping with medication Friday.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Since January 1, the Marine Mammal Care Center has made 385 animals (including over 300 sea lions) sick from neurotoxins, but only about 300 animals per year are budgeted. That total does not include more than 200 chain dolphins in LA County that the center responded to (almost always killed by domo acid poisoning).
There, along the county coastline, lifeguards may be the first to spot Bloom’s latest casualties. Warner said these discoveries, sometimes multiple discoveries per day, are sacrificed.
“The lifeguards are crying on the beach,” he said. “This isn’t something they signed up for. They don’t have the resources to deal with this at the preparation level that we all want to do.”
Mary Blake gives her brown pelican liquid. The bird was found sick at a Huntington Beach residence.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Experts say it’s difficult to know when the bloom, which occurs every 3-7 years, sinks. Tens of thousands of marine animals are affected in Southern California, including seabirds.
In Warner’s view, Bloom’s severity is a warning sign regarding the effects of climate change due to human causes.
“This is the end of the debate over whether climate change is real or not,” Warner said. “There’s nothing else to explain this, I hope it’s sinking.”
Over the next few weeks, rescuers are waiting to see if a group of humpback whales feeding algae hotspots near the Channel Islands become sick and come to the coast.
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