00:00With the help of guest blogger, 8-year-old Gabby, the SeaWorld San Diego rescue team
00:07brings in an injured sea lion with serious injuries.
00:12It looks like there's multiple small holes that have hemorrhage from them that are bleeding,
00:19so it looks like this animal may have been shot with a gun.
00:25This powerful sea lion is agitated as they examine her.
00:32I was kind of scared when it was thrashing around, but helping an animal was my dream.
00:43Jodi finds the perfect job for Gabby to help the team.
00:47I was just holding the hose over it and spraying it with water to cool it down.
00:53The first phase of the treatment, stabilizing the patient, is over.
00:57Gabby got to play a minor role in this critical phase, but for the next phase, the medical
01:03team takes over.
01:06They put the sea lion into a deep sleep so they can take x-rays and get to the bottom
01:11of those injuries.
01:15The results are surprising, but in a good way.
01:18What we've been looking for, for bullets, is something that's really, really bright
01:23white, and we don't see anything like that in here, so we don't see any bullets.
01:28Turns out her wounds are superficial.
01:31It was definitely a relief to see that it wasn't a gunshot injury, and it looked like
01:34it may have been actually from another animal, another sea lion.
01:40In the wild, sea lions are social, noisy, and they can be aggressive, especially when
01:46one sea lion encroaches on another's space.
01:51So no surprise that sometimes somebody gets hurt.
01:55The job now is to clean out this sea lion's wounds so they can heal.
02:00I'm going to flush her wounds with some sterile saline and Chlorhex, which is an antiseptic
02:06solution.
02:07We're going to keep her on her antibiotics, and this should heal up just fine.
02:14After three weeks of rehab and plenty of nutritious fish to eat, this female is feisty, a little
02:22more filled out than she used to be, and now she is ready to go back to the wild.
02:33One look at the waves and this sea lion, along with three other recovered patients, races
02:38down to the sand.
Comments