Seal Beach : Creatures Have Adopted La Jolla Strip as Their Own

LA JOLLA — Call it an inter-species failure to communicate.

Three years ago, after much controversy, the San Diego City Council and California Coastal Commission voted to establish the Seal Rock Marine Mammal Reserve off San Diego’s gold coast at La Jolla.

The goal was to protect California harbor seals from being bullied, harassed or annoyed by swimmers, snorkelers, divers and other aquatic-minded humans. The chief feature of the 1.4-acre reserve is Seal Rock, long a roost for seals.

But about the time the council and commission--over the protests of some divers and beach enthusiasts--acceded to entreaties by the Friends of Seals and other protectionists to establish the sanctuary and make Seal Rock off-limits to humans, the seals decided to change their behavior patterns.

Dozens of seals started spending their days not at Seal Rock, which juts 92 feet into the ocean, but at the nearby Children’s Pool, a tranquil cove protected by a man-made breakwater.

So far, peaceful co-existence has prevailed between seals and humans--save for a few incidents of beach-goers throwing sand at the seals to get them to move aside or to waddle their cute waddle.

True, there was that out-of-town couple who put sunglasses on a seal and let their children ride on its back, all for the benefit of the family video camera. Then again, there have been cases of seal lovers calling 911 to report people trying to spook the seals by word or deed.

“People are very split on having the seals at the Children’s Pool,” said city biologist Robin Stribley. “Half the people seem to resent sharing the beach with seals, and the other half think it’s people, not the seals, that should be told to go elsewhere.”

A day of reckoning may be coming--particularly if more seals begin using the beach, effectively blocking humans from getting to the water. Another concern is that lifeguards could be slowed from getting to the water to make a (human) rescue if they need to skirt a long line of seals.

A couple of weeks ago the seal census reached an all-time high: 167 seals on a beach where the waterline is shy of 100 yards in width. Pups have been born on the beach.

On one recent morning, a good two-thirds of the waterline was blocked as the seals slept happily on the wet sand. Meanwhile, Seal Rock was virtually empty.

City officials have puzzled over how to convince the seals to return to Seal Rock now that it is exclusively theirs. One idea given at least fleeting consideration was to place a large blowup of a white shark, the seals’ natural enemy, on the beach.

The presence of the seals at the Children’s Pool beach flies in the face of conventional zoological wisdom that seals are painfully shy and easily startled and will flee if humans venture within even a few hundred yards.

Adding to the mystery is that for decades Seal Rock had been a favorite sunning, sleeping and playing spot for seals and other marine animals. The state Fish and Game Commission said it is the only resting or “hauling out” spot for the migratory pinnipeds south of Point Mugu in Ventura County.

One local theory about the seals’ shift to the Children’s Pool is that after generations of sharing Seal Rock with humans, the seals of La Jolla have lost their natural fear of people.

Another theory, supported by no evidence except a need to see seals as furry people, is that once humans were banned from Seal Rock, the seals got lonely and migrated to the beach at the Children’s Pool to be near the action.

“There is a surprising symbiosis between animals and people on the beach,” said Chris Brewster, chief of the city’s lifeguard service. “The seals seem quite comfortable sharing their beach, and the people are definitely attracted to the seals.”

Now it bears knowing that the Children’s Pool is not just another strip of coast. It’s considered a civic treasure in San Diego, the Casa Cove land a gift by civic benefactor and newspaper heiress Ellen Browning Scripps in 1931.

The rub is that once the seals plop down on the beach, it is illegal under federal, state and local law for anyone to even attempt to convince them to move along. It is also not smart, since seals are ferocious biters.

The result is that the seals have blocked off a large stretch of the gently lapping surf from the public. The breakwater makes the Children’s Pool a particularly pacific part of the Pacific and thus ideal for children.

The city has posted nine signs warning people not to harass the seals for fear of a fine and incarceration. For the benefit of La Jolla’s many foreign tourists, the city designed a sign showing someone feeding a seal, all inside a circle with a red slash, the international no-no warning.

Lifeguards daily cordon off the seals’ area--which expands or contracts depending on the number and temperament of the seals. The seal count is highest in the morning.

The seals at the Children’s Pool have become a major photo opportunity for tourists. The beach has become a stop on the Gray Line tour along Coast Boulevard.

“They look so peaceful, so happy, so natural,” said Leon Reddig, a pharmaceutical salesman from Virginia vacationing in La Jolla with his wife. “It’s really very amazing, when you think of it. Man and animal living together on the beach, each respecting the other.”

Some folks who were passionately in favor of the marine mammal reserve are left wondering what went wrong.

“Unfortunately we don’t speak seal-ese,” said Steve Alexander, former Park and Recreation Commission member and big-time reserve booster. “If we did, we could tell the seals that Ellen Browning Scripps set that area aside for the children of San Diego, not the seals.”

The city’s legal position--untested by litigation--is that as a public agency, it has the right to use humane methods to encourage the seals to vacate the beach, should their presence present a threat to the public’s health, safety or welfare.

There is talk of a seal summit of the city Park and Recreation Department, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Coastal Commission (which is pledged to evaluate the reserve in late 1999).

“Maybe we should put a neon sign on Seal Rock saying: ‘Vacancy. Seals Only,”’ said biologist Stribley. “It’s a frustration.”