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Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. A sea lion covered in oil lies on the beach near Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean off the Santa Barbara County coast: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times 22 May 2015
Layers of crude oil coat the rocks of Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A California sea lion hunts in the oil-contaminated water as a brown pelican flies over, near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015
Reeve Woolpert carries an oil-covered pelican he rescued near Refugio State Beach on Wednesday [photo by David Yamamoto]: image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015
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Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. A sea lion covered in oil lies on the beach near Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean off the Santa Barbara County coast: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times 22 May 2015
Santa Barbara County oil spill: Toll on marine life begins to show: Monte Morin and Javier Panzar for Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015
Crews are working around the clock to clean up the site of an oil spill in Santa Barbara County that has sent tens of thousands of crude into the Pacific Ocean and left even more saturating the soil.
About 100 feet from where the rupture occurred, a sea lion raised its oil-covered head to the sky and collapsed on the beach. It rested its head on a rock and rolled onto its back, exposing a shiny, oil-stained belly.
UC Santa Barbara marine sciences doctoral student Anna James stopped collecting water samples and looked over at the struggling animal.
"That poor sea lion really puts it all into perspective," she said.
Sea lions normally run off when humans are near, she said. The sea lion was too tired to move.
The sea lion, which appeared to be female, wallowed in the sand just below a rocky cliffside covered almost entirely in black oil.
Marine mammals and fish are turning up on shore both dead and alive. A pair of cleanup workers in protective suits walked up the beach with nets and boxes. They were ready to capture and clean birds, not sea lions.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife Environmental scientist Colleen Young stopped several yards short of the sea lion and scribbled down notes.
She said they would have to wait for a special team trained to deal with sea lions. Just then, the sea lion rose up on its oil-stained flippers and began shuffling to the water. It went into the surf and disappeared into the water.
Young said that even though it was not good for the sea lion to be back in the polluted water, it does not necessarily spell disaster for the animal.
The sea lion's blubber will protect it and provide warmth, she said, unlike a sea otter that can suffer with oil in its fur.
"Sea lions can cope with it quite a bit better than sea otters," she said.
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Marine biologist collecting water samples looks over:"That poor sea lion really puts it all into perspective": image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015
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Marine biologist collecting water samples looks over:"That poor sea lion really puts it all into perspective": image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015
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A sea lion covered in oil struggles on the beach just west of Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015
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A sea lion covered in oil struggles on the beach just west of Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015
With all of the perils and risks involved in living in the littoral, there is, as in all natural communities, a marvelous balance of success and failure. Take success to mean the ability of the individual to reproduce itself and the species to continue. California shares, with other shore-fronting lands, the oldest natural communities on earth. Life which we assume to have begun in ancient seas has changed less in this environment than any other. We look back a hundred million years when we investigate tidal rocks and shores.
Elna Bakker: from An Island Called California: An Ecological Introduction to Its Natural Communities, 1971
The sea lion has oil in its eyes and its flippers. Marine biologist here thinks it is a female. #SantaBarbaraOilSpill: image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015
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Layers of crude oil coat the rocks of Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A California sea lion hunts in the oil-contaminated water as a brown pelican flies over, near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015
Joseph Ceravolo: Ocean Body
The ocean like an open butterfly
is immobile but still pulsating a little.
The color of the sea
is like a blue butterfly
in the primordial future.
The swell of the body
is like a mammoth butterfly
about to take off from earth
and leave this desert of
a faraway planet
spread before us like a desolate tune.
Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Ocean Body, from Millenium Dust, 1982
California mussels and a crab are covered in oil at Refugio state beach on Thursday: photo by Jae C Hong/AP via the Guardian, 21 May 2015
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Globules of oil can be seen in the waves as the tide rises near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015
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Globules of oil can be seen in the waves as the tide rises near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015
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#PlainsAllAmerican in #Texas responsible for spill in #SantaBarbara. We need to tell Texas to stay out of #California: image via Charlotte Williams @charluv2011, 20 May 2015
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#PlainsAllAmerican in #Texas responsible for spill in #SantaBarbara. We need to tell Texas to stay out of #California: image via Charlotte Williams @charluv2011, 20 May 2015
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The sea lion went back into the water: image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015
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An oil-covered crab died while trying to crawl on the beach in Santa Barbara County: photo by David McNew via LAist, 22 May 2015
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An oil-covered crab died while trying to crawl on the beach in Santa Barbara County: photo by David McNew via LAist, 22 May 2015
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California mussels and a crab are covered in oil at Refugio state beach on Thursday: photo by Jae C Hong/AP via the Guardian, 21 May 2015
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An octopus spattered in oil lies on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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An octopus spattered in oil lies on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A shrimp covered in oil at Refugio State Beach: photo byLucy Nicholson/Reuters via Newsweek, 21 May 2015
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A shrimp is covered in oil on the beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A shrimp is covered in oil on the beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A fish covered in oil lies on the sand at Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A fish covered in oil lies on the sand at Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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Clik here to view.![Lobster in California Oil Spill]( "Lobster in California Oil Spill")
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A lobster covered in oil at Refugio State Beach: photo byLucy Nicholson/Reuters via Newsweek, 21 May 2015
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Lone pelican. Mount Tamalpais in background. Taken from Bolinas beach.: photo by Yana Edwin Murphy, 24 July 2007
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A pelican covered in oil is seen along the coast of Refugio State Beach in Goleta, California: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via IBT, 21 May 2015
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A pelican covered in oil flies over an oil slick along the coast of Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via IBT, 21 May 2015
Robinson Jeffers: Phenomena
Great-enough both accepts and subdues; the great frame takes all creatures;
From the greatness of their element they all take beauty.
Gulls; and the dingy freightship lurching south in the eye of a rain-wind;
The airplane dipping over the hill; hawks hovering
The white grass of the headland; cormorants roosting upon the guano-
Whitened skerries; pelicans awind; sea-slime
Shining at night in the wave-stir like drowned men's lanterns; smugglers signaling
A cargo to land; or the old Point Pinos lighthouse
Lawfully winking over dark water; the flight of the twilight herons,
Lonely wings and a cry; or with motor-vibrations
That hum in the rock like a new storm-tone of the ocean's to turn eyes westward
The navy's new-bought Zeppelin going by in the twilight,
Far out seaward; relative only to the evening star and the ocean
It slides into a cloud over Point Lobos.
Great-enough both accepts and subdues; the great frame takes all creatures;
From the greatness of their element they all take beauty.
Gulls; and the dingy freightship lurching south in the eye of a rain-wind;
The airplane dipping over the hill; hawks hovering
The white grass of the headland; cormorants roosting upon the guano-
Whitened skerries; pelicans awind; sea-slime
Shining at night in the wave-stir like drowned men's lanterns; smugglers signaling
A cargo to land; or the old Point Pinos lighthouse
Lawfully winking over dark water; the flight of the twilight herons,
Lonely wings and a cry; or with motor-vibrations
That hum in the rock like a new storm-tone of the ocean's to turn eyes westward
The navy's new-bought Zeppelin going by in the twilight,
Far out seaward; relative only to the evening star and the ocean
It slides into a cloud over Point Lobos.
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962): Phenomena, from Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems, 1925
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Lone pelican. Mount Tamalpais in background. Taken from Bolinas beach.: photo by Yana Edwin Murphy, 24 July 2007
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A pelican covered in oil is seen along the coast of Refugio State Beach in Goleta, California: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via IBT, 21 May 2015
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An oil-covered pelican is loaded into a box by California Fish and Wildlife Department workers Wednesday at Refugio State Beach [photo by David Yamamoto]: image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015
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An oil-covered pelican is loaded into a box by California Fish and Wildlife Department workers Wednesday at Refugio State Beach [photo by David Yamamoto]: image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015
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Reeve Woolpert carries an oil-covered pelican he rescued near Refugio State Beach on Wednesday [photo by David Yamamoto]: image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015
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Clik here to view.![A dead ray, fish, and shellfish lie on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo credit: Jonathan Alcorn/Greenpeace.]()
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A dead ray, fish, and shellfish lie on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday 20 May 2015: photo by Jonathan Alcorn / Greenpeace. via Mongabay, 21 May 2015
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Clik here to view.![Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast]( "Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast")
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Crews use shovels and rakes to pile oil-contaminated sand on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015
Placement of Plains All American Pipelines Major Assets: Image via Plains All American Pipelines LP
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Clik here to view.![The spill took place Tuesday afternoon, after a pipeline owned by Plains All American ruptured.]()
A remote worker noticed abnormalities in the Plains All America pipeline’s flow around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and shut it off, according to the company. The cause of the rupture won’t be known until the area can be excavated.rews use shovels and rakes to pile oil-contaminated sand on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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A remote worker noticed abnormalities in the Plains All America pipeline’s flow around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and shut it off, according to the company. The cause of the rupture won’t be known until the area can be excavated.rews use shovels and rakes to pile oil-contaminated sand on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
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Placement of Plains All American Pipelines Major Assets: Image via Plains All American Pipelines LP
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Clik here to view.![Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast]( "Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast")
Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. Oil-contaminated sand makes an interesting pattern on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015
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Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. Oil-contaminated sand makes an interesting pattern on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015