[Harry Hill]

Originally Posted by Kayak_Bernie

simple fact: through years of conservation and protection the sea lion population is at its highest in a few decades. They have reached carrying capacity and more and more pups are starving because there simply are not enough resources to go around, and the weak are left to die, making the entire species stronger. Except baby sealions are cute and people feel like we need to save ALL of them. Massive resources are put into play to rehabilitate an animal that probably should be dead. One of the main reasons that California Condors are so endangered is that a main part of their diet was taken away, they used to feed on dead whale , dolphin seal and sea lion carcasses, just think how much food a dead humpback whale could provide for large scavengers like the condor. Now everywhere up and down the coast condors don't exist because we clean up and rescue whales dolphins and sea lions. While I think rescuing sea mammals is generally a good idea especially if people have caused them to strand ( fishing nets, or sonar etc.) Sometime you have to let nature take its course, however unpleasant that may be sometimes. Bottom line is that sometime cute baby animals have to die, so other ugly/ non-cuddly animals can survive. But try telling your 5 year old daughter that the baby seal pup need to die so that some baby sardines can live, probably not an easy sell. Unless your kid is really advanced and understand marine ecology and environmental carrying capacity...

People have a hard time understanding that nature kills off it's surplus, it isn't mean or hateful or cruel, it's just nature.