New patrons are flooding into the booths of San Diego restaurants following unseasonably warm temperatures caused by El Nino. Will restaurants have to start catching more fish and scaling them over their commercial sinks in order to handle the load? Maybe not on a regular basis, but the numbers of errant sea lions have risen.
At least they have good taste. A starving sea lion found her way into one of the more upscale seafood restaurants in La Jolla over last week. She was underweight and dehydrated when she was found curled up in one of the booths. Hopefully she found something satisfactory on the menu and was just taking a nap before her order arrived.
Officials at Sea World were called over to rescue the sea lion, and she’s being nursed back to health at SeaWorld’s Animal Rescue Center. The experts are optimistic about her recovery. Restaurants might find more sea lions, as the numbers of sick and starving are rising along with the sea lion mortality.
If you find a sea lion roaming around your restaurant or shop, looking for food, the best thing you can do is to contact your local aquarium and leave their care and rescue to the experts that they have on hand. While you’re waiting for them to arrive, though, you might want to wash some fish in your commercial sinks and carefully serve them to your new diners.
