"An animal’s chance of survival after domoic acid poisoning is 50-50, and this year an outbreak has sickened hundreds"
"It was just after 8am on Tuesday, a thick morning fog still clinging to the California coastline, and SeaWorld’s animal rescue team had already made their first save of the day: a hefty, sick-looking sea lion that had been waddling dangerously close to a four-lane highway in downtown San Diego.
Now, in a private area of SeaWorld that few of the theme park’s thousands of daily visitors ever get to see, the rescue team was in full “triage” mode. Half a dozen staff members maneuvered the caged sea lion off the bed of a truck, and grabbed IV bags full of fluids and vitamins.
Periodically, the animal slumped down, lethargic, and then bit at the bars of its transport cart. The high-pitched barks of other sea lions echoed through the complex.
But this sea lion wasn’t any average malnourished or stranded animal. It had fled its natural habitat and was acting uncharacteristically sluggish, or “down and out”, as Jeni Smith, the head of the rescue unit, put it – both potential signs of poisoning from domoic acid, a neurotoxin currently being produced by a harmful algae bloom off the coast of southern California."
Advertisement 
