It was just after 8am on Tuesday, a thick morning fog still clinging to the California coastline, and SeaWorld’s animal rescue team had already made their first save of the day: a hefty, sick-looking sea lion that had been waddling dangerously close to a four-lane highway in downtown San Diego.
Now, in a private area of SeaWorld that few of the theme park’s thousands of daily visitors ever get to see, the rescue team was in full “triage” mode. Half a dozen staff members maneuvered the caged sea lion off the bed of a truck, and grabbed IV bags full of fluids and vitamins.
Periodically, the animal slumped down, lethargic, and then bit at the bars of its transport cart. The high-pitched barks of other sea lions echoed through the complex.
But this sea lion wasn’t any average malnourished or stranded animal. It had fled its natural habitat and was acting uncharacteristically sluggish, or “down and out”, as Jeni Smith, the head of the rescue unit, put it – both potential signs of domoic acid poisoning, a neurotoxin currently being produced by a harmful algae bloom off the coast of southern California.
“We’re like the 911 operators and we also respond to the calls,” Smith said, looking on as her team tended to the new arrival. “We’re also the ambulance, or the animal ambulance and then we’re the caretakers once they’re here, so we’re like the nurses, too.”
Smith quickly checked her phone, the one used to field 911-type calls from San Diegans who spot injured or sick sea lions. She had 31 missed calls and 18 voicemails in the last two hours alone.
This has not been a typical spring for Smith and her team. While toxic algae blooms have plagued the Golden state for the past four years, 2025 may be the worst year yet – at least for San Diego. SeaWorld alone has rescued 47 sea lions and 30 birds with suspected domoic acid poisoning this year, compared with only 11 sea lions in 2024 and 18 in 2023.
And beyond just San Diego, the outbreak has sickened hundreds of sea lions, dolphins, birds and other marine animals in California over the past month, leaving animal rescue workers scrambling to keep up. Small fish who consume the toxic algae, are then eaten by bigger animals, like sea lions and dolphins. For a sea lion with domoic acid poisoning, which can lead to seizures and heart failure, the chance of survival is roughly 50-50 if treated in time, Smith said. For a dolphin, it’s often fatal.
In response to the current outbreak, the SeaWorld San Diego rescue team has had to double its staff. The team has been receiving roughly 100 calls a day for several weeks.
“We kind of went from zero to 60 in two seconds,” Smith said.
While scientists are still working to determine why, exactly, this year’s bloom has been so extensive, with some posing questions about the potential impact of debris from the Los Angeles wildfires in January, warming oceans fueled by climate crisis have long been shown to contribute to extreme algae blooms.
Whatever the exact cause, working on the animal rescue team lately has felt something like working in a high-pressure hospital setting, Smith said.
“We have those middle-of-the-night, intense rescues, and your adrenaline is so high,” she said. “And throughout the day you’re just going, going, going.”
‘If need be, we’re here 24 hours’
After the latest sea lion intake on Tuesday, the animal was added to a “quarantined” pen with four others; one of the sea lions swam around a small pool of water, pawing at a tiny silver fish but not eating it. Elsewhere on the SeaWorld property, a handful of domoic acid-suspected pelicans huddled together, eyeing newcomers warily. Veterinarians and staff on the rescue team buzzed around, feeding animals and cleaning enclosures.
With her hands full, Smith passed the rescue team’s phone off to Tracy Spahr, SeaWorld’s director of public relations, to help respond to calls.
By the time Spahr returned, she had a long list of other sea lions that were in need of help next: one that appeared dead in Coronado, a pup lying by a lifeguard stand in Encinitas, another by the Pacific Beach pier that police had called in about and a fourth one stranded in Ocean Beach.
“And Scripps [Pier] called and there’s one still there,” Spahr added, reading from a page of hand-written notes that she had taken about each call. “‘Alive but struggling. It moves but is acting strange.’”
Two hours later, SeaWorld’s rescue team arrived at the scene. A large male sea lion sprawled across the sand by the pier, occasionally sitting up to crane his neck back towards the sky. While a crowd of beachgoers gathered to watch, two rescuers – Kevin Robinson and TG Plein – pulled their truck onto the beach and unloaded their gear: a metal crate, nets and several plastic boards.
“It’s been a long month and a half,” Plein told one onlooker, as he answered questions about the recent domoic acid poisonings.
With the help of two lifeguards, it took Plein and Robinson about 15 minutes to corral the barking sea lion into the crate and load it onto their truck. Though Robinson wasn’t sure if the animal was impacted by the toxic algae bloom specifically – it could have been struggling with another type of infection or cancer – the plan was to bring him back to headquarters, take a blood sample or two and come up with a course of treatment.
But for the rescuers, their day was far from over.
They packed up and headed to Ocean Beach next, a tight-knit coastal community 20 mins south. Near the surf, a small sea lion was curled up, unmoving, in the sand. Flies buzzed around its head. A woman in a hot-pink shirt was hunched over it, taking photos. She had first spotted the animal the previous night, she said, and had been praying and singing to it since then.
“You’re here!” she exclaimed to the rescuers, a tear in her eye. “I’m the one who called!”
This time the capture only took a minute or two. The rescuers were again unsure what the specific ailment was, but Robinson suspected cancer.
“We’ll treat her like she’s DA [domoic acid] initially, give her lots of fluids, maybe some antibiotics, that kind of thing, and run her through a full work-up,” he said. “Then we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.”
Robinson, who has worked for SeaWorld for 48 years, has become very accustomed to this routine. Over the last two weeks, as the outbreak had intensified and spread from Malibu down to San Diego, he has been on a rescue run at least once every day.
“I’m a little bit tired, but I mean this is what rescue is about: It gives you a sense of purpose for the day,” he said. “The goal is to do some really good work and to help these animals out. There’s your motivation.”
The rescue team’s ultimate hope is that rehabilitated animals can be successfully released back into the wild. So far this year, SeaWorld has returned 10 sea lions that were treated for suspected domoic acid poisoning.
After Robinson and Plein’s mission in Ocean Beach, they headed back to SeaWorld. The rest of the afternoon could involve a lot more action, Robinson said, whether that meant more sea lion rescues or animal intakes. Technically, he works until 5.30pm each day – but that can easily change, especially as domoic acid poisonings continue. Although it’s uncertain how long this current toxic algae bloom will last, previous blooms have sometimes lingered on for months.
“If need be,” Robinson said, starting back towards the rescue truck, “we’re here 24 hours.”
