Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

The recent recovery of various pinniped populations following their protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) has been largely hailed as a conservation success. At the same time, many coastal areas have been experiencing a rise in human-wildlife conflict due to increased proximity between humans and pinnipeds. La Jolla Cove is a public beach in San Diego, California where humans and California sea lions come into close regular contact and where the public debate over how best to balance between ensuring public access to the coast with protecting local wildlife has continued to simmer. By creating a short documentary film to explore human-wildlife interactions at La Jolla Cove and highlight the range of beliefs on how to address the issue, viewers will be invited to reflect on their relationship to marine wildlife and develop an informed perspective on how best to build peaceful coexistence between species on public land and oceans. At a time when the environment is changing and marine species are showing up in new locations across the world, exploring the interspecies dynamics at play in La Jolla Cove can help provide timely insights into the ways in which people and wildlife navigate sharing space and how to more peacefully coexisting on a more crowded planet.

Please see media created for this project here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-PNA0WFZoIirf7tRMhQYiNMgQef9Wt89/view?usp=drive_link