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''La Jolla Cove is a small, picturesque cove and beach that is surrounded by cliffs in La Jolla, San Diego, California. The Cove is protected as part of a marine reserve; underwater it is very rich in marine life, and is popular with snorkelers, swimmers and scuba divers.''

''The swells that often roll in from the open ocean here can be rather large and strong, and so being in the water at the Cove is not always suitable for people who do not have good water skills. The water temperature is also often a little colder than the average San Diego beach, and the beach has the disadvantage that the dry sand area is very small at high tide. In contrast, during very low tides, a lot of interesting tide pools are revealed at the Cove.''

California sea lions can be found in the waters of the Cove and hauling out, or temporarily leaving the water to rest, on its beaches, cliffs, and bluffs. Similar to the events of the Pacific harbor seals at Children's Pool Beach, there is controversy surrounding their presence.

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Sea lions and controversy
Primarily as a result of their nationwide protection following the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in 1972, California sea lion populations have quickly rebounded. Specifically, the Channel Islands population has greatly expanded and are now inhabiting parts of central and southern California. As the sea lions have occupied more of La Jolla Cove, their interactions with people and property have increased significantly, with both positive and negative outcomes. Large wildlife in urban spaces raises concerns about public health and the safety of people and wildlife in close proximity to each other. These circumstances pose challenging management efforts for the City of San Diego as it seeks to protect the ecological integrity of the area while also ensuring opportunities for public use of the beaches.

Wildlife conservation and land use policy
According to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), while there is no explicitly defined distance in feet to stay away from pinnipeds, including California sea lions, harassing pinnipeds is illegal, and the MMPA defines harassment in two ways:


 * any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance that has the potential to injure a marine mammal; or
 * acts that have the potential to disturb but not injure a marine mammal by disrupting certain behaviors, including migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.

Furthermore, the Cove is a public beach as defined by the California Coastal Act and overseen by the California Coastal Commission. Therefore, there is disagreement about who can use the beach and to what extent. Currently the City is pursuing a shared-use policy with educational signs, interpretive docents, and law enforcement by park rangers, lifeguards, and policemen to ensure respect for the wildlife while permitting full use of the beaches.

History of controversy
Earliest references to the sea lions hauling out, or temporarily leaving the water to rest, in significant numbers in the Cove are from 2013, when La Jolla business owners organized into the nonprofit Citizens for Odor Nuisance Abatement in order to file a civil lawsuit against the City over the “foul odor” caused by shorebird and sea lion poop at the Cove, which they claimed as a public nuisance. The City contracted the cleaning product company Blue Eagle to develop and apply a nontoxic bacterial solution to dissolve the poop without polluting the ocean or harming wildlife. The City additionally installed a public-access gate into a fence along the bluffs east of the Cove in hopes that increased foot traffic would disperse the sea lions and reduce the smell.

In 2015, the City contracted the marine and environmental consulting services of Hanan & Associates to study both the seals and sea lions in La Jolla and provide management options. Over the course of the year, they performed a research study on the populations and behaviors of Pacific harbor seals and California sea lions in and around La Jolla and offered several options and management strategies for deterring the pinnipeds from hauling out, as well as increasing public education. In the final report, published the following year, Hanan & Associates additionally noted the overall increase in pinniped populations along the entire coastline and suggested that more research would be necessary to better inform policy decisions.

Also in 2016, the La Jolla Town Council created the Community Task Force on California Sea Lions, which included representatives from the La Jolla Cove Swim Club, the San Diego Council of Divers, and other members of the La Jolla community, to “gather community input and develop a consensus opinion” through public hearings to provide recommendations for the City. In 2017, the City increased educational signage around the Cove, and formally adopted the Marine Coastal Management Plan , a document put together by Hanan & Associates describing the nature of the pinniped situation in La Jolla and providing management options, including options to pursue shared-use, such as introducing an educational docent program, and options to deter the sea lions, specifically “harassment techniques” approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), which were noted as potentially temporary and objectionable by animals rights groups. Following the release of the Management Plan, the Task Force released a position statement in which its members expressed discontent with some of the recommendations of the Management Plan and their lack of involvement in the process. It concludes by noting that the City continues to pursue “the same beach-sharing approach used to deal with the [seals]” and argues that, due to behavioral differences between the species, this will ultimately be “impractical”. In a response to this position statement and following a meeting with a member of the Task Force, the Director of the Parks and Recreation Department wrote that the City’s approach “will remain first and foremost education. . . but prioritize having the beach available to visitors”. The following summer, the Shoreline Parks Division of the Parks and Recreation Department hired its first pair of student interns to work as educators and policy-interpreters for 1 year at the Cove. The internship program continued in 2019 with the second pair of student interns.

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