A baby sea lion was stranded early Thursday morning, Dec. 4, near the landing of the steps at the Bermuda Beach stairs in Ocean Beach.
Lifeguards were notified after residents discovered the pup at approximately 8 a.m.
After initial notification, residents threw fish to the pup and lured it to the landing of the steps, where it remained until the rescue, according to witness Whitney Seymour.
Lifeguards put up yellow caution tape to prevent residents from using the steps and called the SeaWorld Stranded Animal Rescue.
“It took us a little while to get down there because the team was already up at Solana Beach doing another rescue,” said Dave Koontz, director of communications for SeaWorld San Diego.
Sea World’s rescue team arrived at the scene around noon, according to Seymour.
“We are still assessing the animal right now,” Koontz said, “but we did see that he was weak, looked like he hadn’t eaten, a little bit underweight and dehydrated. So we’re trying to basically get some food into him and get him hydrated.”
Koontz also explained that the pup is being monitored to ensure that there is no illness involved.
“He looks good, he’s resting comfortably back in our rescue animal area,” Koontz said. “Our goal is to, hopefully, get him back to being physically fit and make sure that he can demonstrate to us in his rescue area that he can forge for food on his own.”

She said it is unknown how the California sea lion pup arrived at the steps, but noted that high tide could be a factor.
SeaWorld’s team rescues about 150 marine mammals every year, and last year they released close to 70 percent of those animals back into the wild.
Those that are not released are either too ill or require more intimate care treatment that can acclimate the animal to human contact, making them unable to survive in the wild.
“When you think about it, all these animals would have not lived if they weren’t rescued,” Koontz said, “so to be able to have 70 percent of them go back into the waters off the coast of Southern California is a really good percentage.”
It is currently unknown when the pup will be released, though Koontz estimated it could be several weeks.
And while good Samaritans may be tempted to help a stranded baby sea lion on their own, Koontz said that any interaction is a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Not to mention they are still wild animals, she added.