Singing to Jeffrey's Tune: San Diego - Part 2 - The Seals of La Jolla and Torry Pines

Greetings all from "brrrr" mild (ok, I am cold, since living in SWFL) southern California. I just wanted to share some of our adventures, being we ended up in La Jolla (pronounced La Hooya) and Torry Pines (of the golf course fame). Firstly, I want to address a problem they have in La Jolla's beach. It seems the city put up a retaining wall to shelter a man made beach area for children to play many years ago. Well, being that it was protected, the migrating seals decided it was sheltered enough for them to give birth and create a nursery for their pups. If you know anything about seals, you will know that while they may be cute looking, when cornered or their young is accosted, they can be very ferocious. Not to mention, they are quite large and can move well enough to seriously hurt an adult person (imagine if it was a child, God forbid). So the controversy is between the parents and the environmentalists.

To net out the problem, it is basically the parents want the beach for their children to have a place to play and enjoy the beach. The environmentalist want a place for the seals to have a nursery and be seen by people. Lastly, there are some that want "one beach". Where they share the beach with the seals. This is difficult to say the least (I get the feeling that the seals tend to win out). Well the city said they could rip out the wall so the beach would wash away and the seals would just leave (this is the worst solution in my mind). Instead, the last verdict I heard from the local courts is they are going now keep the beach for the children and some how drive off the seals.

Now, I can understand the parents point of view. Especially if my taxes went to create the project and now I could not enjoy it as promised. However, I enjoyed the sight of the seals. I think... no, I know... if I lived here (and I am considering summering here), I would continue to enjoy the sight of the seals. I think I would enjoy watching my children enjoy the sight of the seals. The water is too damn cold to truly enjoy swimming in it anyway (even in the summer when I was here last). Coming from SWFL, we no longer have seals. In fact, there have been no seals in FL in my life time. Go visit Scripps Aquarium and there is a display about how humans ran the seals off in the 1950's and they have not been back. Check out: Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

My point is this, be thankful you have such an unusual and unique natural creature you can view and enjoy. It might not be there forever. And besides, you always can go to the public pool or a tidal pool down the street.

Some pictures:

Enough about the seals for now. We went up the coast a little way more to Torry Pines (yes the Torry Pines park with the world famous golf course) to hopefully catch a glimpse of the hang gliders. While out here, my future brother-in-law asked if I wanted to try it. I just might. So look for some future post about it. I will have my wife take the shots (and pay up the life insurance). Although there were no hang gliders, we did get some fantastic shots of the sunset. Here you go: