California: Thousands of sea lions starving to death as population boom drives food shortage
Booming sea lion populations have depleted their traditional food stocks and are now turning to unhealthy squid and rockfish as their main source of meals. Researchers discovered that this has triggered huge drops in their weight, leading to thousands of sea lion pups starving. In California alone, sea lion populations have increased from 50,000 to 340,000 since 1975. Research published in Royal Society Open Science suggests this population boom has resulted in a massive depletion of sardines and anchovies – the primary food source of sea lions. Read the rest here 08:18
340,000? Triple that and you are still conservative. The indian’s used to eat sea lions, seals, sea elephants and sea otters and were part of the ecosystem. Now, nobody is able to harvest these animals, and we are saving them when they get sick. It’s a political disaster of the worst type. We’ve really upset the balance, and no politician will risk their future by fixing the mess.