Seals Occupy The Children's Pool

In 1921, La Jolla philanthropist Ellen B. Scripps took it upon herself to commission a safer place for the children of La Jolla, CA to swim. Due to the large rock formations, waves are typically larger in La Jolla than the rest of San Diego county.  Strong rip currents are also the norm in this part of the ocean resulting in very few safe places for the community to swim without fear of being pulled deeper into the sea or of being slammed into the abundant jagged rocks that line the La Jolla coast. Frustrated by the increasing number of swimmer deaths and moved by her love for children, Scripps enlisted the help of a local surveyor to begin surveying and drawing up plans to erect a sea wall. The curved break wall would block the powerful pacific ocean waves and create a calm, protected environment for children and their families to swim and enjoy the beach. After a few setbacks with obtaining permits and with the actual construction, the project was finally completed 10 years later and was named The Children's Pool.

The people of La Jolla as well as tourists from all over heralded the Children's Pool as one of Ellen Scripps' greatest gifts to the community. They finally had a place to bring their children to safely enjoy the beach and ocean. But about 100 yards north of the pool sat the impetus to what would become a metaphoric and literal dividing line amongst a new generation of residents just decades later, Seal Rock.

Seal Rock is a bluff where the sea mammals would occasionally congregate to pup or stay out of reach from predators. It was designated as  a seal reserve and in the mid-nineties the marine mammal park, Sea World, began placing rehabilitated rescued seals. The seals were accustomed to humans and eventually found their way to the Children's Pool, where they now live in growing numbers year round.  The pool yet again began garnering much attention from the community and from tourists of the world who were in awe of the seals' occupation of the beach.

Today, spectators gather on top of the sea wall, above the pool and even on the sand to observe and take pictures of the rows of seals just hanging out on the beach. The section of the La Jolla coastline once dedicated to children has now become home to a colony of seals. Some people even mistakenly refer to the pool as Seal Beach. But it is the Children's Pool and it is the center of a hotly debated topic in San Diego. Residents stand divided and enraged by the question of who should stay, us or them. The opposing schools of thought are divided into two dueling groups, The Friends of the Seals and The Friends of the Children's Pool.

According to their website, the Friends of the Seals' mission statement is, "To preserve the La Jolla Harbor Seal Colony for ecological, educational, scientific, historic and scenic opportunities." and to,"To create and administer volunteer docent programs which will provide environmental education for the public and promote safe viewing of harbor seals and other marine life along the Southern Coast of California.". Their concern is that when humans stand to close to the seals while pups are still in their "weaning period" they believe this causes a disturbance to the seals and the pups stand at risk of being abandoned before they have fully learned how to fish on their own. If they do not know how to get food on their own they can become malnourished and die.

In recent years, the La Jolla Friends of the Seals' efforts have resulted in a golden rope placed annually during the seals' pupping season; the golden rope was part of the shared use act and was not intended to restrict people from the beach but to serve as a reminder to people to give the seals space. As of 2010, there is also a park ranger in place to stand guard of the seals to ensure no one harasses them. LJFS is currently working on obtaining permits to close the beach completely during pupping season. On March 12, 2012, they received approval for budget funding in the amount of $30,000 to be applied towards the permits needed for its closure during the pupping season.

The Friends of the Children's Pool organization believes there should, "be [a] real Shared Use, and enforcement of existing law to clear illegal sales tables that bankroll the extremists. [...] The City can't afford to bend over for [Animal Protection and Rescue League] and violate the 1931 Trust and the Coastal Act. We have to share. It can work." The Friends of the Children's Pool express that they do not intend to try having the seals removed. They would like to continue shared use of the beach and have pointed out the steady growth of new pups for the past 4 years as a sign that their birthing patterns have not been disrupted.

This debate has continued on for well over a decade and both parties remain firm in their positions. But it remains unclear who is right or if there even is a right.