"MOSS LANDING -- It's 7:30 a.m. at the Marine Mammal Center, and the sea lion pups are famished. For the past five weeks, volunteers have been desperately trying to nurse back to health more than a hundred sea lions found stranded along the state's beaches in a mystery that's threatening one of California's most lovable sea creatures.

Three times or more each day, the volunteers snake tubes filled with pureed herring and fish oil down emaciated pups' esophagi to deliver a chicken soup of the sea directly into these sickly mammals' stomachs. Covering the pups' eyes with a towel does little to stop them from locking their jaws.

'It's good when they're averse to it,' said volunteer Sonny Knaub, 26. 'We want to keep them wild.'"

Kim Smuga-Otto reports for the San Jose Mercury News February 12, 2015. [2]