The sea lions in La Jolla may become year-round residents of the shoreline north of the Children’s Pool, reports NBC 7’s Kelvin Henry.
The City of San Diego plans to make the annual seasonal closure of Point La Jolla year-round.
People often forget that sea lions are wild animals that can attack if you get too close, San Diego City Councilmember Joe LaCava said.
“This is all about public safety,” Councilmember LaCava said.
Sea Lion Tales
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Point La Jolla is a rocky portion that sits between La Jolla Cove and Boomer Beach where sea lions often rest on land.
Councilmember LaCava, whose district covers the La Jolla area, said city leaders are taking a measured approach and explained why the move was necessary.
“We really started this effort in 2021 when we saw these increased interactions between the public and the sea lions, the temptation of being able to get up close to these wild animals, take pictures with them, put their children in close proximity was just as I said, too much for temptation,” Councilmember LaCava said.
That endeavor led to signage and efforts to educate people about not getting too close to sea lions that eventually led to the current annual closure from May 1 to Oct. 31 that was implemented in 2022, which coincides with “pupping season.”
City leaders said they weighed many options before landing on a year-round closure.
“When we looked at those options, what's really important for us is to maintain the public safety. That's the city's job and we could do a lot of things that we talked about, we could have park rangers out there seven days a week, 24 hours a day, we could put surveillance cameras out there, and none of those were really satisfying in terms of really keeping the public safe and good use of city resources, other things that we should really devote those resources to. So just that year-round closure really seemed to be the key,” Councilmember LaCava said.
An application with the year-round closure proposal will be sent to the California Coastal Commission to review.
LaCava expects the application to be submitted in the months ahead and he said he hopes the plan is approved before the end of October.
The public will have the opportunity to weigh in on the matter in the months ahead, LaCava added.
