Mammal’s best friend

Outside a tall red barn, a diminutive harbor seal, Peeps, flops in and out of a blue wading pool, anxiously awaiting a handful of herring.

Peeps was rescued from Point Mugu in Ventura County on Easter Sunday — hence his name. At only 16 pounds and about one week old when he was rescued, Peeps is the smallest of the pack of harbor seals currently housed at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Canyon. A little more than six months later, his new habitat is preparing to celebrate its 35th anniversary with a Marine Mammal Masquerade on Oct. 29.

The gala, to be held from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Mozambique, will feature live music, South African cuisine, live auctions and festive masks.

The celebration’s flashy environs will be a far cry from the daily duties of the center’s staff and volunteers, who take turns feeding, mucking and cutting fish; even the group’s development director, Emily Wing, keeps a pair of galoshes under her desk.

“We are very much looking forward to the event,” Wing said. “We’ve had great support from the community, and we’re very excited to honor John and Stephanie Cunningham.”

John Cunningham was a longtime teacher at Laguna Beach High School. He “inherited” the program from founder Jim Stauffer.

“It’s been a fast 35 years; I can’t believe it,” Stauffer said.

Compared to the private backyard where the center started, the Laguna Canyon Road facility has several pools, offices and a classroom.

Peeps is housed in his own pen. His fellow six harbor seals, which include blind Leo and energetic Sirus, share a larger below-ground pool area with occasional blue heron and egret visitors George and Gracie.

They’re currently joined by six massive elephant seals and a sprightly California sea lion, Madeline.

Sarah Mueller holds a shield-like board in front of her as she feeds the elephant seals, which can grow to 5,000 pounds in weight.

The pinniped (seal and sea lion) “patients,” as they’re called, are found all over the region’s beaches.

“When we first get a call from a lifeguard or someone who sees an animal,” Wing said, “we try to get a good description from them.”

In order to get a sense of species, Wing said the center will ask about the animal’s estimated body weight, markings and such telling factors as whether bones are showing.

“We then send out a rescue team and bring them back to the center,” Wing said.

Rescuers are usually granted the right to name their charges; the center has also gone through theme-naming spurts, like Brady Bunch members, cheeses, pastas and fashion designers.

Elephant seals Snoopy and Lucy are all that remain of a spate of Peanuts characters.

Several of the current stock are due to be released soon, Wing said.

Not all animals have the same destiny, though; blind Leo will probably remain at the center for the rest of his life.

Although high bacteria levels have been affecting pinnipeds on and off for years now, the animals often end up stranded on beaches because they develop colds and other minor illnesses, just like humans do, Wing said.

This is more detrimental to a marine mammal than a teenage boy, though, as the former needs its nose to find food.

So the mammals often end up washed up, stuffed up and emaciated. The center first tube-feeds them a Pedialyte-type liquid, before moving on to fish and formula. They’re also given any necessary medicines.

“We maintain as much of a hands-off policy as possible,” Wing said; the animals can become too accustomed to human interaction if boundaries are not kept, thus making their re-entry to the wild much more difficult.

It’s a good sign when the patients start to compete with each other for food and attention, Wing said.

Stauffer had no intentions of creating a large center when he rescued his first pinniped.

“I sort of did it as a lark,” he said.

He recalled a time when the lifeguards were responding to a possible drowning. He said the chief received a call from a hysterical lady who told him, “I don’t care if people are drowning; I want this sea lion taken care of.”

Stauffer took care of it and developed a reputation for housing “patients” in his back yard.

“The bad part was, the sea lions were eating good fish and I was having TV dinners because it was all out of my pocket,” he said.

The need eventually became too great. A colleague told him that he ought to start a group to help out. He moved the sea lions he had at the time to a temporary site at the water district.

“I was sick of having the sea lions at the back of the sewer plant because they kept escaping,” he said, although he added that the plant employees were “very polite” about his unconventional use of the space.

Then, he recalls, “I went on vacation, and when I came back, I was the head of animal services.”

He used his newfound power to incorporate a barn the city bought from the SPCA, he said.

Frustrated by city politics regarding his rescues, he went out to the site.

“I decided I would build a pool there,” he said. “I got out there one day on my day off, and I just started digging a hole.”

His friend Cunningham stopped by and noticed that Stauffer had no plan for the pool, so he drew its present shape with a shovel.

“That’s good enough for me,” Stauffer told him. A friend showed up with a back hoe, and the rest is history.

“We never got permits; I never even thought about it,” he said, although he worked for the city.

Over the next several years, they began training regional agencies and lifeguards on how to properly catch the pinnipeds, and the program grew.

Today, the center facilitates monthly kid club meetings as well as countless field trips and scout groups. It has received awards and grants from organizations like Disney and the Red Cross.

The group’s land is leased to them by the city for $1 a year.

The facility is open to the public daily and has a gift shop and bleacher area for people to view the pinnipeds in action.

“We have a really great corps of volunteers,” Wing said. She noted that about half of them have been involved with the center for four years or more.

Volunteers learn on the job, Wing said. “At first you do the dirtier jobs,” she added, cutting fish and dishwashing being common duties.

Volunteers’ own pet dogs hang out in a penned-off area in the building, beside a walk-in freezer filled with cartons of fish.

The building’s upper-level classroom space has been upgraded recently and now features a large painting of a sea lion by artist Mike Tauber installed last week.

Shelves of pint-sized yellow galoshes line one wall; they are there for kids to put on with slickers to perform mock rescue activities, netting each other and learning to cut fish.

From their second-story perch, they can listen to the chatter of the pinnipeds during their classes and workshops.

After feeding, Snoopy the elephant seal lets out a loud bellow before turning over to sun herself.

“It’s not a bad life,” Wing said, laughing.