HARBOR SEALS have taken up residence at two additional beaches in Pacific Grove, and the city is getting ready to keep them from taking over Lovers Point.

In fact, the P.G. City Council this week passed a resolution that would allow the cute, slippery creatures to be scared off if they set up housekeeping on the city’s main beach for swimming and sunbathing.
Lovers Point would have to be temporarily closed to humans if seals begin giving birth there, one city official said.

“The pups are pretty helpless little critters for about a month and rely solely on Mom to survive,” said Thom Akeman, who is on the city’s beautification and natural resources committee.

With the population of harbor seals “as high as it’s ever been,” according to Akeman, there’s concern they’ll take over even more beaches, which could lead to more contact with humans.

“If people get too close to them or bother them, the moms take off,” said Akeman, also a docent with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “An abandoned pup is almost always a fatality. Without mom’s milk, they don’t survive.”

Harbor-seal pupping season peaks in April and May, Akeman said. The local harbor seal colony is about 600.

Although experts believe human activity and scent will be enough to deter harbor seals from setting up shop at Lovers Point, there is some concern the animals could move to the beach because of their increasing population.

Currently, most of the harbor seals, which are nocturnal, spend their days on a beach next to Hopkins Marine Station. Recently, they moved to a beach right next to the chain-link fence that separates Hopkins Marine Station from the nearby recreation trail.

And Akeman said in 2006, during the birthing season, a few seals ventured from Hopkins and went to a small beach at Fifth Street which was fenced off by the city. This year, the seals returned to the Fifth Street beach.

“If they are expanding west of Hopkins,” Akeman said, “that brought up the question: Are they likely to have pups at Lovers Point? And that brought the next question: Are they likely to establish a colony there?”

A bad mix

About 20 years ago, harbor seals took over a popular beach in La Jolla called Children’s Pool, sparking feuds between those wanting to protect the animals and others who believed they should be driven from the beach.

Akeman said the resolution is designed to prevent a similar situation from happening in Pacific Grove.
“Seals and people don’t mix,” he said.

Some of the tactics proposed by the city to deter seals from moving onto Lovers Point may seem comical, but they’ll be necessary, according to the city.

“If yelling and waving don’t work, we’ll take pots and pans down there and bang them,” Akeman said.
Scarecrows, sonic repellers, digital noisemakers and “excessive or continuous noises” are also being considered to fend them off.

“We decided we don’t want any instruments — no prods, no pokes, no touching at all,” Akeman said.

The city could use its own employees trained to repel the harbor seals and enlist volunteers for the activity.
And if pups are delivered on a city beach, the city will fence off and close the beach, and post “No Trespassing” signs.

The city might use docents to explain the pupping viewing sites and the nature of the mothers and their pups. This is currently done at the other harbor-seal areas.

Akeman, Bill Kampe and Roger Phillips were part of a subcommittee to discuss how best to deal with the harbor seals, which are protected by federal law.

All of the proposed techniques were approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Harbor seals, which are speckled and don’t bark, are half the size of their sea-lion relatives, which are more aggressive in nature.