8 DECEMBER. CALIFORNIA: MARINE MAMMALS

Lisa Fernandez, reporting in the L.A. Times, reports that California sealion pups on San Miguel Island, off the Ventura Coast, are starving as the current ENSO event has "driven away" the forage fish on which sealions and northern fur seals depend. Twenty percent of the 23,000 young sealions have died; 65 - 70 % are expected to die by June, twice the normal rate. Seventy-five percent of 2,000 young fur seals have already died. Mortality rates may be higher on other islands not being monitored. Other local effects of ENSO such as decreases in kelp may soon affect the local fisheries.