Sea Lion Cinema

Again, this seemed perfect for Animal Planet.  They didn't want the Kabul Zoo because that would scare the little kiddies.  So how could they resist a series about a young female scientist who's rescued a group of sea lions and is training them on the beach in California?  Another slam dunk.  So I thought.

SEA LION CINEMA

            On a small, nearly deserted beach just north of Monterey, California, a remarkable experiment is taking place that is showing that humans and animals can work together to make the planet a better place to live.

            An attractive, thirty-one year old woman, Jennifer Hurley, is working night and day to train four sea lions to become allies in her quest to understand the ocean's inhabitants.

            Hurley, at first glance, looks like a stereotypical California beach lover; worn jeans, faded tee-shirt, long blond hair and hiking boots.   But what you don't see is that she's earned a Ph.D. in Biology and was her high school's valedictorian back in Bethesda, Maryland.  What's most remarkable is that she's devised a unique system to record the underwater doings of the ocean community.

            She's strapping specially rigged underwater video cameras onto the backs of her sea lions and taking a close up look at life in the deep.  Her be-flippered research partners have captured candid images of wild animals ranging from jellyfish to humpback whales. 

            The sea lions are showing that they can be an affordable alternative to the use of elaborate technology like submarines and that they can bring back unbelievable video that shows how animals actually live.  Since they are part of the ocean community, sea lions swim along with migrating dolphins and whales without upsetting the observed. 

            Hurley's two older Sea Lions, Sake and Beaver, have both been in training for about eight years.  They've taken part in over 1000 training and research excursions and come back with a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in the ocean.

            We have been given access to many hours of fantastic video images that these two pioneer sea lion cinematographers have produced.  These tapes provide a window on the ocean environment that human researchers have never been able to capture since they will always be outsiders.

            The US Government was so impressed with Hurley and her team that they made Sake the mascot of the US Pavilion at this summer's World Expo in Lisbon, Portugal.

            We will combine the wonderful underwater images with original photography of Hurley and her team of college interns as they work with their animal partners to explore the unknown. 

We'll see how Sake and Beaver have become the elder tutors to the younger sea lions, Jonah and Nemo, and how they all have developed a remarkable degree of trust and understanding.  It's this trust that keeps the formerly wild sea lions coming back even though they could swim off at any time and rejoin their still wild counterparts.

 "They stay because we are their family; the ocean is their work place,” said Dr. Hurley.  Their other work place is the training and living area that Hurley and her interns have built on the beach at Moss Landing.  It's a no-frills affair.  What you would imagine James Garner's Rockford character devising if he were a marine biologist.  These marine biologists found out that they also had to  become carpenters, and they went at it with all the passion and enthusiasm they've shown in the rest of their work.  But the Hilton it's not.  Its plain purposeful, hand hewn look gives it an authenticity that no contractor or Hollywood scenic artist could ever duplicate.

A converted house trailer facing the ocean serves as the administrative headquarters.  A few steps behind HQ are three large elevated pens, each containing a training pool that houses the sea lions and provides an area for daily on-shore training.  It's also where they are fed a seemingly unlimited supply of fish. 

The fish are not only food, they are rewards that help hone the sea lions'  over 100 trained skills that can be used in their research.  Catching a Frisbee and returning it will earn Sake a fish or two.  Hurley tries to find fun ways to teach and looks for ways to incorporate the sea lions' natural activities into the research tasks.  Hurley explained her philosophy, "The trainers never force the sea lions to do anything they don't want to do.  It's about finding a way to use the sea lions natural abilities to enable humans to accomplish more than we would without the animal."

Hurley is not the first to recognize that the human friendly and trainable sea lions have unique abilities to function efficiently in the ocean at depths of over 370 meters.  Nor is she the first to see that the fact that they can dive repeatedly and rapidly without difficulty could prove to be productive.  We'll take a look at how the US Navy has been using sea lions for over 30 years to aid various military operations.  But it was Hurley and her mentor, James T. Harvey who saw the sea lions potential for scientific research.

They are literally just scratching the surface of what can be done with their new partners.  They have begun to track the migratory pattern of whales and dolphins and to investigate how human noise pollution (caused by large ships, military operations, oil drilling, etc.) has affected their behavior.

The sea lions are learning to place suction cups with monitoring devices on whales that can then be tracked by satellites.  This will allow scientists to understand more about the little known lives of these species.  "Knowing which waters they use and how deep they dive will help us determine how to direct conservation efforts to protect whales," said Hurley.

When it's time to go out into the open ocean, Sake, Beaver, Jonah and Nemo hit the beach, take a short walk down to the surf and swim out to the waiting research boat.

We'll go along and see how humans and sea lions are truly becoming partners in the quest to unlock the ocean's wild mysteries.