When an emaciated sea lion pup recently needed help, he perhaps instinctively knew where to go — into a warm kitchen with a stove he could curl up next to.
And a kitchen, at Redondo Beach’s King Harbor Yacht Club, is exactly where he ended up last week, during what turned out to be a pit stop in a surely tumultous journey that began somewhere in the ocean and ultimately concluded with him recovering at a care facility in San Pedro — at least until the pup is fit enough to return to the wild.
It was around 9 p.m. one day last week when the pup, around 6 to 7 months old, somehow managed to crawl onto a dock, up a ramp and around a back patio to slip inside an open door leading to the kitchen at the King Harbor Yacht Club, in Redondo Beach.
The pup caused quite a stir.
“Things were quieting down after dinner and (I was eating) with some friends,” said Pat Light, director of the board and volunteer membership chairperson at the club, 280 Yacht Club Way. “Lupe (Ruiz, the food service manager), comes up to me and says, ‘We have something in the kitchen I need to show you.””
Light followed her into the kitchen — and there was the pup.
“I go back there and see this little sea lion right in front of the stove,” Light said. “I thought, ‘Well that’s unusual.’ And everyone’s like, ‘What do we do?’”
Good question.
They called 911.
“Everybody was fascinated,” Light said. “Everyone was taking pictures and someone said maybe we just give him some salmon and let him out on his own, but I said he was too small and didn’t look well.”
The pup also had fallen asleep, she said, and was snuggled up near the stove where the floor was warm.
Police officers responded and eventually someone contacted the rescue group that works with San Pedro’s Marine Mammal Care Center, a working rehab facility that takes in sick and injured sea lions and harbor seals — where the pup is now recovering from malnutrition. He has a good prognosis.
“The guy just swooped him up by the tail and gently put him in a (plastic) animal carrier,” Light said. “Then (the pup) made some noise; he was not happy with that.”
Lauren Palmer, staff veterinarian for the Marine Mammal Care Center, got the call late that evening, on Thursday, Jan. 26, and decided to come in.
“We got the call around 9 Thursday night and we didn’t get him until 10:30,” she said. “He was so skinny, he came in at about 31 pounds, so we took him in.”
Palmer said the pup — nicknamed “King,” after the yacht club — needed tube-feeding and hydration.
“I didn’t think he had a lot of time that night, frankly,” Palmer said.
But he rebounded well — he weighed 37 pounds as Tuesday, Jan. 31 — and is now eating “pretty good-sized fish,” Palmer
The prognosis, she added, is good.
“I haven’t found any health issue at this point,” Palmer said, “other than the malnutrition and we can correct that.”
The center would like to see him “double or triple” his initial weight, so he’ll probably be there, she said, for six to eight weeks before being released to his “natural home” in the ocean.
“This was very unique,” said the center’s new CEO, John Warner, who comes from a previous center in Sausalito.
“This animal was very emaciated,” he said, adding that the pup seemed to be seeking help by coming up out of the ocean.
“We’ve had some recent weather events with some pretty ferocious waves and tides,” Warner said.
The pup was likely separated from his mother, he added.
“It’s really a great story to me of a group of people doing exactly the right thing,” Warner said of the Yacht Club assisting the pup, “and going above and beyond to help.”
Palmer concurred, saying the yacht club staff “was great.”
“They did everything right and were so kind; this pup couldn’t have had better luck,” Palmer said. “He picked the right place to go and the right people.”
Unfortately, Warner said, more pups could end up stranded in the months ahead, typically starting in March, in what’s turned out to be an El Nino year — causing tumultuous surf.
Because of that, Warner said, it’s important for the public to know how and how not to respond.
Here are some rules on what to do if you see a marine mammal in distress:
Call the Marine Mammal Rescue Center at 800-39-WHALE.
Stay back; federal law requires people to stay 50 yards away from the animals.
Keep dogs away.
Notify a lifeguard.
Maintain visual contact until help arrives.
Provide photos, location, size and activity to rescue teams.
Besides that advice on what to do, here’s what you should not do:
Disturb a stranded animal.
Try to catch it.
Scare it into the water.
Throw it into the water.
Cover it with a blanket.
Feed it.
The cost to feed King, Warner said, runs about $50 a day and donations for him and other patients are always welcome at marinemammalcare.org/donate/.