2025 will go down in the record books as a year of many challenges. Yet, with challenges come growth and shining moments of success! Things started off slower than in 2024, but that quickly changed. By the second week of January, devastating wildfires forced us to evacuate. Response operations shifted to a remote staging location.

In mid-February, just 3-weeks later, the region was hit by the longest (13 weeks) and most severe harmful algal bloom (HAB) recorded in Southern California. This event exposed thousands of California Sea Lions and Common Dolphins to two concurrent neurotoxins (domoic acid and saxitoxin) wreaking havoc on the health of our native marine mammals. Here is a look at some of the notable moments.

Over 3,500 calls were fielded by our marine mammal team, resulting in 500 responses. These included 359 investigations involving eight different marine mammal species and 141 responses related to thirteen species of marine birds. To make this possible, more than 11,700 hours were dedicated to the efforts, including over 5,000 staff hours and 6,700 volunteer hours.

We are proud to report that this season, 95% of all Northern Elephant Seal patients were released, and 72% of all rescued pinnipeds were released. Additionally, we were able to collect important morphometric and health data from the postmortem exams of 105 patients.