‘Demonic’ sea lions that attacked people off California coast were sickened by toxic substance: scientists

The horde of “demonic” sea lions that attacked people off the California coast in recent weeks lashed out because they were sickened by mind-warping toxic algae, scientists have discovered.

The normally adorable ocean critters — who mauled a surfer and bit a swimmer — were reduced to a zombie-like state due to a neurological flare-up that caused confusion, seizures and panic, marine experts said.

The center tested hundreds of sea lions and found they suffered from the so-called “domoic acid toxicosis” from gobbling down fish exposed to the toxic bloom near the southern California shoreline.

At least 195 sea lions with the illness have been admitted to the center since late March, said Warner, who said they can recover with anti-seizure medications and sedation.

But the brain-bending condition often makes sea lions flip out with rage — like in the case of Rj LaMendola, who was dragged from his surfboard by a sea lion on March 21.

“It looked possessed,” LaMendola, 40, wrote later in Facebook post. “This creature looked like nothing I’d ever seen—its expression was feral, almost demonic, devoid of the curiosity or playfulness.”

“All that toxic sewage being sent up to us from Mexico.”

Untreated sewage is dwarfed by the amounts of nitrate and phosphate fertilizers that wash down from Central Valley irrigation districts outflows. Those two nutrients are almost always the cause of red tides. Every year so much of them wash down the Mississippi River that a huge dead zone forms in the Gulf of America hundreds of square miles in area as the algae blooms die and sink to the lower waters where they rapidly consume all the available O2 causing a huge anoxic zone to form.

There have been ideas to take huge fish pens some a full kilometer in diameter to the blooms on the Gulf’s surface with filter feeding fish like menhaden or mackerel in huge schools of them. Let the fish chow down and fatten them up while cleaning the water of the blooms. Then either grind the fish up to fish meal which is high protein feed like 60% pure protein , plus fish oil and solubles. Or take the fish press the oil out , take the filets off and the bones are nearly pure calcium phosphate perfect for fertilizer that also doesn’t tend to run off as the calcium locks it into slow release for roots. The other choice would be bivalve in floating sacks or ropes to filter feed all the algae out yielding again protein and shell mass , shells are calcium carbonate so a feed ingredient for cement or concrete.

“ These are not nice creatures to start with”

Yup, they don’t call them Sea LIONS for nothing. Saw them over run docks on the Oregon coast. Heard of many people the found that out the hard way trying to pet these cute little critters.

Our country is building large pathways for seasonal creeks to increase Salmon numbers in the Ocean. The reason that there is much less Salmon living is #1 Overfishing and #2 Too many Sea Lions. Kill them every time they “pop up”. In the rivers, on docks, laying about on boats and beaches.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.