The Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Research Team has been working to rescue an estimated 400 ensnared sea lions off of B.C.’s coasts, with the latest rescue having taken place on Thursday.
Dr. Martin Hualena, head veterinarian of the Vancouver Aquarium, has been leading the project to rescue these animals he said are trapped by garbage and marine debris off the province’s shores.
He went out in search of entangled sea lions on the east coast of Vancouver Island this past week and there he found one particularly bad case.
“We did find one California sea lion that was very entangled in fishing gear around his kind of mid-section that was cutting very, very deeply,” he said. “We recovered the animal in the water, which was very interesting, and disentangled the animal.”
He said this single incident is but one of 450 to 500 estimated cases of entangled animals happening around the province on any given day.
“The biggest issues for us is it’s very, very complicated to go ahead and disentangle these animals,” he said. “So many factors have to come into alignment.”
Haulena has worked with the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup to help identify problem areas, as well as facilitate the education to communities explaining the impact of man-made debris on our wildlife.
He hopes this program will continue to expand and to reduce the damage done to these creatures.
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