A sick sea lion resting on a California beach was kicked in the head and beaten with a large piece of driftwood, prosecutors say.
Now, 32-year-old Christopher Hurtado, of Santa Paula, has pleaded guilty “to two felony counts related to the beating of a sea lion suffering on a Ventura beach from recent algae blooms,” the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in a June 17 news release.
McClatchy News was unable to immediately reach an attorney representing the man on June 18.
“Ventura County was outraged by the violence this defendant inflicted on a defenseless animal,” District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said in the release. “The nature of this senseless attack shocked our conscience and called for aggressive prosecution.”
As a woman was walking on the beach with her dog March 4, she spotted “a sea lion stuck on the rocks in front of the Ventura Promenade” and called 911, prosecutors said.
When dispatchers checked live footage from surveillance cameras near the Ventura Pier, they saw the man approach the sea lion and kick it in the head, prosecutors said.
Hurtado sat on the rocks for a short time, then grabbed “a four-foot piece of driftwood,” raised it above his head and hit the sea lion twice, prosecutors said.
Officers arrived at the shoreline and detained him as he tried to run away, according to police, McClatchy News previously reported.
“Officers found .06 grams of methamphetamine in Hurtado’s pants pocket,” prosecutors said.
At the time of the attack, “the sea lion was alive but suffering from domoic acid poisoning, a naturally occurring toxin in algae that can be harmful to marine mammals,” police said.
The Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute responded to keep an eye on the sea lion’s condition, according to police.
The nonprofit ended up caring for the sea lion at its center but later had to euthanize it due to its domoic acid poisoning, prosecutors said.
Just before his trial was set to begin, Hurtado pleaded guilty to “one count of cruelty to an animal and possession of a hard drug,” prosecutors said.
In addition, he admitted to “special allegations and aggravating factors,” which included having a prior strike and “that the sea lion was vulnerable,” according to prosecutors.
Hurtado, who is being held on $25,000 bail, is scheduled to appear in court July 14 for sentencing and faces three years in prison, prosecutors said.
Ventura is about a 70-mile drive northwest from Los Angeles.
What to know about domoic acid poisoning
The sea lion’s death came during an uptick in the number of sea lions suffering from domoic acid poisoning found along the Southern California coast, according to a Feb. 25 Facebook post from the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.
Domoic acid is produced by the algae Pseudo-nitzschia australis, according to the Marine Mammal Center.
“When conditions are right, waters off the coast of California can experience large-scale toxic algal blooms that are capable of sickening hundreds of sea lions in a matter of weeks, causing them to wash ashore at an alarming rate – sometimes a dozen a day,” according to the Marine Mammal Care Center.
Some symptoms of domoic acid poisoning are “seizures, bobbing head, erratic behavior and lethargy,” the Marine Mammal Center says.
With some domoic acid poisoning cases, the Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute said it removes sea lions from the beach.
In other cases, however, the organization leaves the sea lion on the beach to “give the animal space and time to work through the acute phase of the toxin,” the organization said, adding that it continues to monitor the animal.
The organization warned those who come into contact with a “marine mammal in distress” to keep a distance of at least 50 feet.
By DANIELLA SEGURA/McClatchy News
Daniella Segura is a national real-time reporter with McClatchy. Previously, she’s worked as a multimedia journalist for weekly and daily newspapers in the Los Angeles area. Her work has been recognized by the California News Publishers Association. She is also an alumnus of the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley.
