SAN DIEGO — Every year during pupping season in San Diego, a newly born group of sea lions learns how to navigate their new home along the La Jolla Cove. But one threat to their survival may come in the form of those who admire them the most: humans.
The debate continues as year over year — and especially the in summer — the cove draws thousands of visitors in awe of the beautiful patch of sand along the west coast and the animals that call it home. But while there's so much to love about how intertwined San Diego is with nature, the debate continues over how close is too close for people to get to the sea lions.
For weeks, viral videos have circulated of sea lions defending parts of La Jolla Cove from tourists trying to snap photos and selfies with them. With no barriers blocking them from approaching the sea lions, crowds form in the hundreds along the rocks where the sea lions reside, sometimes resulting in the sea lions charging at visitors, or fighting each other within a few feet of people.
Local organizations are continuing to ask whose responsibility it is to keep both the animals and humans safe.
Carol Toye with the Sierra Club has been one of the leading voices in this debate, pleading for more signage, cones restricting access to pups, and a permanent park ranger to limit crowds.
"This is what we do," said Carol Toye, a volunteer with the Sierra Clubs Seal Society. "We educate the public, and people are constantly grateful for the education. But, what we're saying is we cannot do and should not be doing the crowd control, which is really what is necessary now because there has been absolutely no management for the area this year."
CBS 8 took those questions to the city of San Diego. They told us, “the City lacks the authority to enforce any provision of the MMPA." They continued in part by adding that "doing so would be interpreted by the courts as unauthorized enforcement. No other agency, whether federal, state, or local, can enforce unless this power is delegated to them by the federal government.”
Essentially, the protection of these sea lions falls under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a federal law that is not under the city's jurisdiction to enforce. The city says it would require action by a group like NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) or CCC (California Coastal Commission) to either enforce violations there or to grant the city the jurisdiction to do so.
All this comes as viral videos continue to pop up – with many placing blame on these crowds for the death of several pups each year as mother sea lions can get spooked and abandon their pups. Animal rights groups say this is what is continuing to happen to these pups. Three sea lion pups were found dead in six days this year.
"What happens in the wild will happen," Toye told us. "But surely we don’t wanna be responsible for loving these animals to death and petting them and causing them to die."
But this is no new debate. Pupping season happens every year and so come the visitors from around the world. Both Point La Jolla and Boomer Beach are under a year-long closure, codified into city code. But the City says when it comes to La Jolla Cove, state or federal congressional action would need to be taken to grant the city the authority to enforce protection.
"We've been coming here since we were little," one beachgoer told us. "If you give them a little respect to them and a little space, they let us do our thing they do their thing and it tends to work out really well. I think what I’ve seen is the tourist that don’t have a healthy respect for it and they just get a little too close too quick and look at it as an Instagram moment or something like that and so I think just a little respect for it that they’ll be just fine. I think we can coexist."
In the meantime, The Sierra Club says they’ll continue their mission of educating those visitors and awaiting change. The city also says their rangers are constantly responding to calls of violations, but at La Jolla Cove specifically, education is all they have the ability to do until they’re given jurisdiction.
WATCH RELATED: More sea lion, human close encounters at La Jolla Cove in San Diego prompt concerns