Casa Beach, also known as the Children’s Pool, is a tiny beach in La Jolla, California that is famous for its colony of harbor seals. The site is a huge tourist attraction and a favorite spot for locals to watch wildlife.
There are many beautiful beaches in San Diego for people to enjoy, but this small cove is the only home that this colony of several hundred seals has. Presence of the seals is an incredible educational experience for those coming to see them.
Children in particular enjoy watching the seals as many of them have not had the opportunity to witness wild animal behavior at such close range free of charge.
In 1931, Ellen Browning Scripps donated money to build a sea wall in order to create “a safe place for children to swim”. To allow the artificial construction, the State of California transferred the land to the City of San Diego in a Tidelands Grant of 1931, dedicating Casa Beach to human recreation. Back then, seals were commercially hunted by fishermen who viewed these animals as competitors for fish. Hunting was so extensive that many harbor seal populations abandoned traditional haul-out areas.
Casa Beach has been home to the seals for centuries; the rock the sea wall was built on was called “Seal Rock Point” by the first settlers to the area. Seals made their comeback in the late 80’s and early 90’s as a result of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the federal law passed by Congress in 1972. While this law now prohibits shooting and killing seals, more subtle human disturbances of seals persist. Habitat loss is by far the most serious problem facing wildlife today.
Harbor seals are semi-aquatic mammals and, unlike dolphins or whales, need to rest on land. They are shy animals whose habits are easily disrupted by the presence of humans. Seals often react when humans come within 300 ft (90 meters) and may abandon a haul-out site permanently, as they did at historic sites in San Francisco Bay, due to high and chronic human disturbance.
The Children’s Pool area is critical to the survival of this small colony, since it is the only mainland rookery (breeding grounds) in Southern California south of Ventura County:
Map courtesy of Gabor Nagy
As shown on the map, the nearest harbor seal colony is 170 miles up north in Point Mugu.
The City of San Diego tried to protect the colony by placing a rope guideline informing the public about the safe distance from the seals (rope guideline was installed between 1999 and 2004). Unfortunately, a swimmer, Valerie O’Sullivan, sued the City of San Diego (of which La Jolla is a part) and won a ruling in 2005 from a now retired state court judge ordering the city to dredge the sand on which the seals rest to return it to its 1931 condition as a “bathing pool.” The judge ordered the City to remove the rope, dredge the sand and awarded O’Sullivan’s lawyer, Paul Kennerson, a shocking sum of 1.3 million dollars in attorney’s fees.
The City appealed the ruling all the way up to the California Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. Then, under the direction of Superior Court Judge Yuri Hoffman, the city was being forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry out the dredging project (the Environmental Impact report itself carried a price of nearly half a million dollars).
In May 2007, Animal Protection and Rescue League (APRL) sponsored a Zogby opinion poll to see where San Diegans stand on protecting the seals at Children’s Pool Beach. The results: over 80% of San Diegans and 91% of La Jollans want increased protection for the seals: http://aprl.org/zogbyseals.pdf
The 200 feet of sand at Casa Beach is a small part of more than 70 miles of public beaches available in the coastal city of San Diego. Despite Casa Beach being the only seal wildlife habitat left in the area, a small group of anti-seal activists insist on exclusive human use for this tiny portion of San Diego’s coastal beaches. These people treat the seals as a nuisance and their goal is to discourage the seals from coming back to the beach by scaring them into the ocean. Their tactics often involve invading the beach in the early morning to scare the animals back into the water. If any animals are left behind, usually abandoned babies and sick or injured seals, they plant umbrellas and signs right next to them to encourage unaware tourists to “pet the seals and take pictures with them”.
Through its SealWatch program, APRL has been maintaining a day and night presence at Casa Beach to protect the seals from harassment. Our educational program is very effective with the general public that welcomes information about responsible wildlife watching. However, our employees and volunteers cannot stop the individuals who insist on disturbing the seals. We are very frustrated as we are forced to watch harassment of these animals on an almost daily basis, especially on weekends. We are also frequently harassed by the anti-seal people who dislike the fact that their actions are being documented.
Disturbance of marine mammals is a violation of the federal law (The Marine Mammal Protection Act), but with no federal agent present, harassment occurs over and over and is performed by the same small (5-20) group of individuals. Many of these individuals have a criminal record and one of them, Kent Trego, was held without bail in a federal prison for sending death threats to SealWatch/APRL volunteers.
Thousands of visitors from all over the world (approximately 140,000 a month) come to the Children’s Pool to watch wild harbor seals in their natural habitat. Human conflict is very often provoked when anti-seal agitators ruin that viewing experience by disturbing the seals. The Police must be called upon frequently due to the often aggressive behavior by these individuals towards visitors disagreeing with their disturbing behavior.
In 2007, APRL represented by a pro bono attorney Bryan Pease filed suit in federal court to enforce the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The district court dismissed the case, but APRL appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which granted an emergency motion that allowed the rope barrier to remain for the 2008 pupping season, which runs December 15 through May 15. The judges of the appellate court dismissed the case in June 2008 despite the fact that they agreed with APRL’s argument that the federal law should trump the outdated state law.
On February 27th, 2009, after being contacted by APRL/SealWatch , Senator Christine Kehoe introduced legislation, SB428, co-sponsored by Assemblymembers Nathan Fletcher ® and Lori Saldaña (D)) to amend the outdated 1931 Tidelands Grant. The bill lists a “marine mammal park for the enjoyment and educational benefit of children” as a permissible use of Casa Beach. The bill passed the Senate April 16, 2009 30-4 and the Assembly 71-0 on July 9th, 2009.
On July 20, 2009, State Court judge Yuri Hofmann ordered the City to disperse the seals from Casa Beach within 72 hours by using amplified dog barking sound – this decision was blocked by Governor Schwarzenegger who signed SB 428 into law the same day.
Since that the State Legislature amended the outdated 1931 Tidelands grant, the City of San Diego has a discretion to create a marine mammal park at Casa Beach for the seals.
On May 17, 2010, the San Diego City Council voted to close the beach for the pupping season from December 15 to May 15 and to keep the rope guideline up year round.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/17/seal-vote518/
Despite this historical victory for the seals, the permit to have the permanent guideline protecting the seals was denied on December 9, 2010 by the San Diego Planning Commission. The usual right for the citizens to appeal that unfair decision to the Coastal Commission was also denied. The second permit to close the beach during pupping season will not be processed as it is not included in city’s budget. The beach is still open and the anti-seal activists are acting out more than ever since the City Council’s vote, causing disturbance even during pupping season: their behavior is irrational and very troubling.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/05/13/jvm.issues.sandiego.seals.hln
Please contact the mayor to demand to take the year round rope matter to the Coastal Commission as promised. Please also ask him to close the beach for the seal pupping season on emergency basis.
Mayor Jerry Sanders (619) 236-6330 JerrySanders@sandiego.gov