When an emaciated sea lion pup recently needed help, he perhaps instinctively knew where to go — into a warm kitchen with a stove he could curl up next to.
And a kitchen, at Redondo Beach’s King Harbor Yacht Club, is exactly where he ended up last week, during what turned out to be a pit stop in a surely tumultous journey that began somewhere in the ocean and ultimately concluded with him recovering at a care facility in San Pedro — at least until the pup is fit enough to return to the wild.
It was around 9 p.m. one day last week when the pup, around 6 to 7 months old, somehow managed to crawl onto a dock, up a ramp and around a back patio to slip inside an open door leading to the kitchen at the King Harbor Yacht Club, in Redondo Beach.
The pup caused quite a stir.
“Things were quieting down after dinner and (I was eating) with some friends,” said Pat Light, director of the board and volunteer membership chairperson at the club, 280 Yacht Club Way. “Lupe (Ruiz, the food service manager), comes up to me and says, ‘We have something in the kitchen I need to show you.””
Light followed her into the kitchen — and there was the pup.
“I go back there and see this little sea lion right in front of the stove,” Light said. “I thought, ‘Well that’s unusual.’ And everyone’s like, ‘What do we do?’”
Good question.
They called 911.
“Everybody was fascinated,” Light said. “Everyone was taking pictures and someone said maybe we just give him some salmon and let him out on his own, but I said he was too small and didn’t look well.”
The pup also had fallen asleep, she said, and was snuggled up near the stove where the floor was warm.
Police officers responded and eventually someone contacted the rescue group that works with San Pedro’s Marine Mammal Care Center, a working rehab facility that takes in sick and injured sea lions and harbor seals — where the pup is now recovering from malnutrition. He has a good…
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