A sea lion pup had been snatched from Dockweiler State Beach L.A. beach early on Sunday when a witness told the police of seeing a group of people who harassed the pup and then took it away from the parking lot.
The witness said that 4 people, 2 of them men and the other 2 women, all in their 20s had been throwing trash and at one point even a concrete cinder block on two sea lion pups at around 3:20 a.m. according to Los Angeles Police Officer Rosario Herrera.
The witness had been collecting recyclable containers at the time of the harassment and saw one of the woman wrap one of the pups in a blanket and put the animal in the trunk of a dark colored Honda Civic before driving off, stated Lt. Lydia of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The car had last been seen heading towards south on Vista Del Mar, police said. The license plate number ends with the numbers 56, according to the witness.
The harassment, hunting, capturing or killing of sea lions is prohibited by the Federal Law.
The rescued pup weighs about 25 pounds and is most likely 10 months old, according to Peter Wallerstein, the president of the group Marine Animal Rescue, a nonprofit group that helps stranded sea animals to get back into the ocean.
The witness called the police as soon as the car left, who around 4 a.m. contacted Peter Wallerstein, who headed to the scene right away and had been able to locate the second sea lion hiding in the bushes of a bike path close by. The pup was unharmed, he said.
Wallerstein said sea lions very frequently wander onto land in search of food, and people have tried to take them in before. Most people have good intentions but they end up making bad decisions.
They’re not pets and cannot be kept as one.
“The animal needs fluids, needs special treatments,” he said. “You can’t just feed it dog food. It’s not going to work.”
The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are investigating the abduction as baby sea lions are a protected species. Police have started a cruelty to animal investigation.
