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Visiting The Marine Mammal Center

Yesterday, my cousin helped save a baby elephant seal.

He was out for a run and saw it on the beach near Crissy Field in San Francisco and with the help of a couple others they contacted the authorities and within a couple hours volunteers from The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito were there to pick it up. Another one of my cousins, his sister, was in town this weekend for a conference and we had tentative plans to go out this afternoon. She called this morning and mentioned the rescue and that they were thinking of going to the Center to visit the seal and asked if we wanted to go along. Of course!

We met up around 1 and headed over to Sausalito for lunch at Paradise Bay which had great food and a stunning view of the waterfront. From there it was over to the Marine Mammal Center!

I did know about the Center before today, I added it on my “to visit” list after watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for the first time with San Francisco awareness (I’d seen it plenty of times, but hey – I live in San Francisco and this movie is in San Francisco!). There is no Marine Mammal Center in the film, but there is the fictional Cetacean Institute in Sausalito and I discovered the Marine Mammal Center while exploring the fictionality of the Cetacean Institute. It turns out the scenes with the Cetacean Institute were filmed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (indeed, the logo for CI is actually MBA’s logo!), but there were never humpback whales in captivity there, or anywhere. However, in 2007 The Marine Mammal Center did help a mother and baby humpback whale who accidentally swam up the Sacramento River, Delta and Dawn. So, Kirk and Spock, don’t go back to the 1986 when you need your whales, 2007 is where it’s at!

The Marine Mammal Center is a truly wonderful place. Upon arrival we told the women at the information booth about the rescue of Chantal (the seal, named after the daughter of one of my cousin’s co-rescuers) and she contacted one of the volunteers who could help us figure out which pen they were keeping her in. Chantal turned out to be a he and we were able to peer into the pen where he was being kept from an above viewing area.

Chantal is one of 22 baby elephant seals they are currently caring for, most of whom are babies like Chantal who were separated from their mothers, typically due to storms or human interference of some kind. These pups are all around 85lbs, when they should be closer to 300 at their age when properly nourished by their mothers. The Center focuses on making them well and then releasing them as quickly as possible, which they said typically takes 1.5 to 4 months, depending on the seal.

I picked up a basic membership on my way out. If I ever get bored of all this open source stuff I will seriously consider volunteering my time here, their volunteer programs are quite impressive.


Brendan, Melissa and Lyz outside The Marine Mammal Center

Once we wrapped up there we headed to downtown Sausalito for some window shopping and ice cream. I’d never been to Sausalito before and the weather was beautiful, we had a really enjoyable time.

More photos are in this Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157626187172327/

It was after 6 by the time we got home this evening and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to this weekend but it was worth it to spend all this great time with my cousins, and for this seal adventure.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2011 at 9:20 pm and is filed under animals, family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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