By Mary O’KEEFE

Last week I wrote about touring the Mammal Marine Care Center in San Pedro. First of all, the care center is located at the historic Fort MacArthur. 

The fort was the “center of early shipping activity in the harbor. In 1796 Father Lasuén built an adobe shelter at the location. During the Mexican-American War (1845-47) Commodore Robert Stockton used the area for storage of ordnance and supplies for his march on Los Angeles and the site was commissioned as a military reservation in 1888. It was named in honor of Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur who later commanded American forces in the Pacific during WWII,” according to SanPedro.com. 

Fort MacArthur serves as a residential community for personnel of the Air Force Space Division Based at El Segundo, and is not open to the public. 

The care center is also near Angel’s Gate Park, which is home to the Korean Bell of Friendship. 

“This massive and intricately-decorated bell and pavilion was donated in 1976 to the people of Los Angeles by the people of the Republic of Korea to celebrate the bicentennial of the U.S. independence, honor veterans of the Korean War and to consolidate traditional friendship between the two countries. The bell is patterned after the Bronze Bell of King Songdok, which was cast in 771 A.D. and is still on view in South Korea today,” according to SanPedro.com.

The Korean Bell of Friendship is quite impressive and absolutely beautiful, especially in its setting overlooking the ocean. So give yourself some time when you go to the care center just to take in this California oceanside park. 

Years ago I was in Monterey many times for work. When I was done for the day I would take my son to the pier and we would watch the sunset. Almost every single night we were there and we found sea lions and harbor seals in distress. We were told there were a lot of fishing ships just outside of California waters, in international waters. 

Gill nets were banned in 1990 in California state waters, but that was only within three nautical miles of the mainland. More often than not, the sea lions and seals my son and I saw over the years had some type of damage done by humans; they were either gashed from propellers or had gill nets around their fins and necks. We saw one that was particularly bad when I had both my eldest and second child with me. They both saw this poor harbor seal with nearly white skin and you could see something around his neck. He also seemed to have plastic netting around his fins as well. After numerous nights at this pier I had the emergency seal recovery number on speed dial. Sometimes someone would come out from the local Monterey Aquarium; however, usually the crew came out from aquariums in the San Fransisco area. Normally I would have to call the agency that took the injured mammal to find out how it was, but this one time the injuries were so bad I just wanted to keep informed of how the little guy was doing. 

All I was told was he survived and that he was taken to San Diego. 

It was almost a year later when my kids and husband went to Sea World (I was then working in Coronado). My family went to see Seamore the seal in the “Clyde & Seamore Show.” My husband shared the story of this poor little seal in Monterey and found out that Seamore was actually that seal we had helped rescue. The net had done so much damage to the seal’s throat and fins, plus he had several gashes on the sides of his body, that the treatment team could not send him back out to the wild – so he became an actor. 

It was really nice hearing that the seal had survived – but it was still so upsetting that these poor creatures found themselves tangled in nets; not just seals but so many creatures including birds found themselves in these torturous situations. I understand though that from the passing of the Marine Life Protection Act in 1999 to the recently passed AB 1056, which phases out several dangerous commercial fishing gear like gill nets, the ocean has been a little safer – but only a little. 

While at the Marine Mammal Care Center, we saw how these amazing mammals are still in danger, still are an afterthought to some and a tourist destination for others. 

In La Jolla there have been so many stories about tourists trying to get a selfie with seals and sea lions, even getting close to the mammals with their pups. I can guarantee that if some of these insensitive humans saw any type of threat toward their children they would react violently; yet they feel it is perfectly fine to threaten another mammal’s children. 

However, when David Bader, the chief of operations and education officer, and I were talking he continued to pivot from the negative to the positive actions. There is no doubt that seals and sea lions are facing starvation and threats because of a warming sea and humans; however, Bader wanted to also focus on the positive – the capacity for compassion that he has seen throughout his years of protecting the creatures of the sea.

We spoke about how hundreds of people are calling in to report seals and sea lions that need help, and how a lot of those people stay with the injured mammal until someone shows up, how so many work together to save whales beached on the shores, and how so many want to help injured and sick animals they find. 

CVW has seen this over and over again – people calling us after finding injured birds or small creatures, like squirrels, and want to know who they can call to get them help. We see people go out of their way to rescue stray and lost dogs and cats. My family has rescued dogs, cats, kittens and snakes. It’s second nature for so many of us, this compassion for all creatures great and small. 

There are some people who do add to the problem, like those who want to get close to take a selfie with a sea lion or a bear, and some who think feeding wild creatures is actually helping them, which of course is wrong. For the most part, for the majority of human beings, being kind is a natural fallback behavior but as we know kindness does not get the clicks online that bad behavior does – and so what CVW would like to do is to promote kindness. We would love your stories of people who are paying it forward, who are showing they care for all creatures. Please share your stories with me to show our capacity for compassion.  

Try limiting your words to 375 and photos are always welcome. Please email me at mary@cvweekly.com.

NOAA has issued a heat advisory from now through July 27 at 8 p.m. Temperatures today, Thursday, are expected near triple digits. They are expected to continue through Saturday before cooling slightly with the highs being in the mid to low 90s. 

Unfortunately, we will still be dealing with humidity, which is here thanks to a few factors including a tropical air mass from the south. Though it will bring  humidity no rain is in our forecast. The ocean is also warming which, according to NOAA, is something that happens during this time of the year; however, its arrival is a little ahead of schedule. 

Although many will go to the beaches for relief from the heat, the beaches will be in the low 80s and high tides are still expected so it is advised that beachgoers go where there are lifeguards on duty and to stay close to a lifeguard station…. Remember to share the beach with other mammals, so respect them and respect the environment. Do what all good Girl Scouts know: “Leave the world a little better than you found it” – clean up your trash. 

Even though the heat advisory is scheduled to end on July 27, there may be more hot temperatures next week too.