Someone cut off the head of a sea lion in Northern California and rode off with it in a bag and authorities are now offering $20,000 for information that helps find the perpetrator.
The body of the mutilated animal was found at Doran Regional Park in Bodega Bay on Christmas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries announced this week.
A member of the park’s staff initially found the deceased animal and left it alone, per park policy, Sonoma County Regional Parks spokesperson Sarah Campbell said.
The body was left “for nature to take its course,” Campbell said, while the staffer went back to Doran’s main office to retrieve gear to document the sea lion and send that information to San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences.
But when the staffer returned 15 minutes later, according to Campbell, the carcass had been decapitated.
A witness account said the individual appeared to be a man between 30 and 40 years old wearing all black and riding a black fat-tire e-bike, according to NOAA.
The agency’s office of law enforcement is investigating the death.
NOAA is asking anyone with information to call its enforcement hotline at (800) 853-1964.
The suspect was seen using a 8-inch black knife to remove the sea lion’s head, placing it in a plastic bag and riding off, according to NOAA.
John Warner, chief executive of the San Pedro-based Marine Mammal Care Center, said aside from the “cruelty and weirdness” of the decapitation, the act of removing the head was not safe for the perpetrator and society in general.
“We live in a world where avian flu is a concern and other zoonotic diseases can easily transfer to humans,” Warner said. “You’re taking a knife and likely not wearing PPE and you’re putting your health and that of others in jeopardy.”
From a legal standpoint, the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the harassment, hunting, capturing or killing of sea lions and other marine mammals. Harassment includes harming an animal’s body after death with limited exceptions, including for educational and scientific purposes, NOAA officials said.
Incidents of sea mammal cruelty are not rare in California, nor is the discovery of a headless sea mammal unique.
On Tuesday, the severed head of a dolphin surfaced at Alamitos Beach in Long Beach, according to the Long Beach Post. The animal had earlier washed ashore, was dissected during a necropsy by staff at the Marine Mammal Care Center and buried in the sand, but later re-emerged.
Earlier this month on Ventura Beach, a man was arrested after a sea lion suffering from domoic acid poisoning was beaten.
An unknown individual also shot and killed a 2-year-old sea lion at Bolsa Chica State Beach on Aug. 7.
Warner said that more animals were brought to the Marine Mammal Care Center in 2024 for gunshot wounds than any in other year he’s aware of.
“Cruelty to animals is unfortunately alive and well,” he said.
He said he was unaware of any bogus claims of medicinal value for sea lion body parts, as is sometimes noted for rhino horns or donkey skins.
“Thank God there have been no links to sea lions, otherwise I fear this wouldn’t be shocking or abnormal, if that was the case,” Warner said.
The public is asked to report a dead, injured or stranded marine mammal to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network at (866) 767-6114.
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