Marine Mammal Center

In Sausalito, California, there is a hospital called the Marine Mammal Center. There are vets and volunteers who try as much as possible to save marine mammals that are mostly elephant seals, sea lions and harbor seals. Every year, there are a lot of ocean animals in danger. The major causes are malnutrition, injuries and domoic acid. Domoic acid is a poison released due to human actions. The vets take care of these animals and, when the animals are healthy, they release them back into the ocean as soon as possible to prevent these animals from getting too used to humans. Sometimes, some animals are not able to return and survive on their own in the ocean; therefore the human thing to do is euthanize them. Some experts try to figure out how these mammals normally behave and what has brought them to the center to prevent them from dying in nature and to know how the ecosystem has changed. By putting satellite tags on released marine mammals, they have found a lot of things like the fact that every year these animals migrate a great distance away, which represents twice the size of the United States. It is very important to learn about them because whatever has an impact on them can also affect us.