Tourists travel worldwide to watch La Jolla\u2019s harbor seal colony \u2014 especially during the “pupping” season, Dec. 15 through May 30. The Children\u2019s Pool seals live in one of a few natural rookeries and are easily accessible. Although visitors continue to travel to La Jolla this year, hoping to see seal births and babies, as of Feb. 11 five seal pups had been born but none survived on their own. The first seal gave birth Nov. 1 to a stillborn pup, two were born in January and then two were born in February, said Animal Protection and Rescue League\u2019s SealWatch spokesperson Dorota Valli. “One in January was alive,” Valli said, adding that the pup was small, the mother abandoned it and it washed away. “On February 1, another one was born and SeaWorld rescued it.” SeaWorld spokesman Dave Koontz said rescuers saved the pup early this month and it is doing well. But Koontz said it\u2019s too soon to decide whether the SeaWorld pup will be released back into the wild. “We\u2019re feeding it around the clock and it\u2019s putting on weight,” Koontz said. So, the Children\u2019s Pool natural rookery remained empty of pups as animal activists and visitors watched for a glimpse of the season\u2019s first live seal baby. Although the first pup was born at the beginning of February last year, Valli said this year\u2019s mortality rate could be a natural phenomenon, not caused by humans flushing the marine mammals. And Feb. 15 would be a good marker for live births, she said. “I\u2019ve seen direct miscarriages from harassment before, but that hasn\u2019t happened this year \u2014 that I have seen,” Valli said. Since a federal judge ruled that the city could erect a barrier rope in an effort to discourage the public from harassing pregnant seals and pups, APRL hasn\u2019t employed security at night, Valli said. “What happens at night is hard to tell,” Valli said. “Pups should be born anytime now, pretty much. We still have a week or so. We\u2019re just waiting for healthy pups.” Valli said the nonprofit La Jolla Friends of the Seals will post birth dates, photos and names on its website, www.lajollaseals.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tourists travel worldwide to watch La Jolla\u2019s harbor seal colony \u2014 especially during the “pupping” season, Dec. 15 through May 30. The Children\u2019s Pool seals live in one of a few natural rookeries and are easily accessible. Although visitors continue to travel to La Jolla this year, hoping to see seal births and babies, as […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Harbor seal colony waits for live births at Children\u2019s Pool","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}