Environmental Current Events

A colony of harbor seals that took over a beach in La Jolla that had been willed to children will be allowed to stay, a judge ruled Friday, possibly bringing an end to the prolonged legal tug-of-war over the cove.

The so-called Children’s Pool was established in 1931 as a swimming area for children by the owner of the property, philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, who died the next year at age 95. The seals moved in some years ago and turned the cove into a nesting area, to the delight of many children as well as environmentalists.

But others felt the growing colony had become a nuisance and wanted the seals removed. In 2004, swimmer Valerie O’Sullivan — who now lives in New Zealand — filed a lawsuit seeking to restore the area for human use, and the next year, Judge William Pate ordered the city of San Diego to dredge Children’s Pool, at the city’s expense, and disperse the seals.

Earlier this year, Judge Yuri Hofmann told city officials to comply with Pate’s order. But in July, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation amending the trust that established the beach as a children’s swimming pool, giving the San Diego City Council the discretion to designate area as a seal sanctuary.

Well, now that my question has kind of already been answered, I'm going to have to modify my essential question a little, since the seals can stay. Yay!

The La Jolla Seals have been granted access to stay at the Children's Pool at Casa Beach. Some information that is missing would be how did people react to this? Which could be a good question to go off of for my project. Also, I would like to know how O'Sullivan and Pate reacted to this recent turn of events. The information here kind of biases my original question for Media Saves the Beach. I am definitely going to have to do some changing, or adding to my topic, because How does San Diego Media effect the publics opinion on the Seals at Casa Beach seems a little less workable. Although, it could potentially work, some people could be really upset by this news. I'm going to have to do some exploring about it.