Kathleen Lord counts seals on the beach at the Harbor Seal Rookery in Carpinteria. Her count totals 57.
Lord is one of 117 volunteers with Carpinteria Seal Watch who help to protect the seals during their pupping season.
"The Seal Watch volunteers, of which there's always somebody from 7 in the morning till sunset, we want to make sure the moms can come up, and they have their pups on land," said Lord. "We want to be sure they're safe, the pups are born and are raised, and go off to their lives. Then they come back later and become the moms and have their pups."
The beach is closed from December to May to allow the seals sanctuary and protection.
"They're very beautiful creatures," said Lord. "I think they are perfectly disguised as rocks, browns, and blues. When the baby comes, there's red, and the baby pops out, and usually, there's a seagull next to where the baby was born. And the placenta breaks, and the seagulls have a feast. And it's bright red in this landscape."
Lord has seen four seal births since she’s been volunteering with the group, and fellow volunteer Al Clark explained that the season is a precarious time for the pups, who often don’t survive.
"It's in a very highly disturbed area. There are people coming through all the time. When they get disturbed, because they don't move very well, the seals head immediately for the safety of water. But it's a learned response, and the pups don't know to do it. So the moms, boom, go in the water and leave the pups on the sand. And everybody says, 'Oh my God, what a bunch of crackhead mothers! We would never do that to our babies,'" said Clark.
"There's a very high pup mortality. Fifty percent at least will die, not of natural causes, but pneumonia related to water pollution. It's not an endangered species, but what's endangered is the public's ability to see nature in the raw," he said.
Keeping a lookout over the beach is a stream of nature lovers.
"We come here every year to camp," said one observer. "We came here the first time and realized this was happening, and so we just come out every year and check out the seals and talk to the watchers and watch the pregnant mamas and the pups, and it's really fun. To see nature and not disturb it is amazing because you can watch exactly what's going on, you don't have to try to interpret anything, you don't have to worry about anything, it just happens."
"It's very peaceful and just fun to hang out with these wonderful creatures for a few minutes," explained another.
"Watching the moms and the seals and thinking about how this is their homeland, and they come back year after year. It's just astounding, and to be able to access it up here to see it is just phenomenal," said another onlooker.
The seals are here year-round, but much of the year, they’re only seen at night.
Kathleen said that with rising tides and water levels, she's concerned about just how much longer they’ll be coming here for this magical part of their life cycle.
