![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Blondie-1.png\")
Blondie the sea lion on Sept. 4, the day before the marine mammal pursued swimmers near Albany Bulb. Credit: Colleen Haraden<\/p>\nBlondie the sea lion on Sept. 4, the day before the marine mammal pursued swimmers near Albany Bulb. Credit: Colleen Haraden<\/p>\n
\u270f\ufe0f This story started with a tip from a reader who stopped by our booth Sunday at the Solano Stroll. Share your news tips<\/a> with Berkeleyside \u2014 the more you tell us, the more we can cover the issues and answer the questions that matter most to you.<\/p>\n A regular swim near the Albany Bulb turned terrifying over Labor Day weekend when a small group of swimmers were bothered by a persistent sea lion as they rushed to get back to land.<\/p>\n \u201cI call it an attack. We were not bitten, but it felt like an attack,\u201d said Teri Hudson, one of three swimmers surrounded by a sea lion in a dangerous encounter the morning of Sept. 5, while on their routine plunge from Albany Beach into the San Francisco Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis was definitely a targeted interaction,\u201d said Hudson, an Oakland teacher, who lives in Albany. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel safe or friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n Hudson, a member of an East Bay open water swim group called the Blue Boobies<\/a> that use Albany Beach as a base, was on high sea lion alert that day.\u00a0<\/p>\n Swimmers from the group saw around three dead or seemingly ill sea lions (including one fur seal, a type of sea lion) on or near the beach in the days before and after the incident. They believe the animals were sickened by domoic acid toxicity,<\/a> a neurological or brain poisoning affecting California sea lions at record rates<\/a> over recent years. Many experts link<\/a> the increase to the warmer waters of climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n The dead sea lions are gone now, and there haven\u2019t been any more recent sightings at least by the Boobies, including of the sea lion that chased them in the surf.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Marine Mammal Center<\/a> has seen a spike in domoic acid poisoning in sea lions and fur seals over the past several months \u2013 news the swimmers were following closely. Cases are concentrated on the Monterey Peninsula, but also found along the California coastline, including in the San Francisco Bay. \u201cSince 1998, when we diagnosed the first case in marine mammals, this brutal disease has become much more unpredictable and intense,\u201d the center said in a recent web update.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s no way to know if the Albany sea lions were affected by domoic acid, without testing. But beached sea lions are rare along the East Bay shoreline, so any at Albany Beach is a twist from the norm.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been swimming consistently for about seven years from the [Albany] Bulb. And this is the first year that we\u2019ve seen sea lions showing up at all, and they\u2019re all sick,\u201d said Colleen Haraden, a founder of the Blue Boobies.<\/p>\n Attacks in the San Francisco Bay are extremely uncommon, though still fresh for some people, is the unusual cluster of four sea lion attacks<\/a> \u2014 with bites \u2014 in San Francisco\u2019s Aquatic Park cove in 2017 and 2018. Domoic acid toxicity was among the theories considered<\/a> to explain the animal\u2019s aggressive behavior, along with food shortages. But nothing was proven.\u00a0<\/p>\n Haraden, who lives in Richmond and works<\/a> in Berkeley in water clean-up and restoration, said she was first surprised when she saw two sea lions off the Albany shoreline in June. Then came Labor Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a cluster of days around Labor Day weekend, Boobie swimmers said they saw one dead sea lion in the waters off Albany Bulb, and one on the beach. A fur seal, a type of sea lion, also died on the beach that weekend, they said. (A sea lion was also sighted by a photographer<\/a> on the shoreline of the Berkeley Marina on Sept. 10.)<\/p>\n The animal that scared the swimmers in the water a little after 8 a.m. on Sept. 5 was almost certainly the same sea lion they\u2019d seen lethargically planted on the beach since the day before, seemingly out-of-it and blinking into space, Hudson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe assumed he was sick,\u201d Hudson said. (The Boobies assume the sea lion was male, as females tend to favor southern water breeding grounds in the summer, but they weren\u2019t sure.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been really upsetting to all of us, it\u2019s a very peaceful, wonderful place that many of us have been enjoying for years,\u201d said Hailey Hibler, another Blue Boobie swimmer. \u201cWe worry about what will happen in the future if waters continue to warm.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Blondie was basking on the beach when they entered the water<\/p>\n Naming him Blondie, for his traditional honey fur, Hudson said some of the dozen or so swimmers that morning observed the critter for a while before deciding it was safe to hit the water. Someone had put yellow caution tape around Blondie, presumably to keep people and their dogs away, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe went straight down to the water, and hung out for a little bit to watch him to see what he\u2019d do. He didn\u2019t seem interested,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cHe really didn\u2019t do anything. He tended not to pay attention to us.\u201d<\/p>\n But soon that changed.<\/p>\n After stroking for about a half mile through the surf west to their usual turnaround point, one swimmer glanced back at the beach, and noticed, surprised, that Blondie had moved further south down the beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t as immobile as it had seemed.\u00a0<\/p>\n They quickly strategized, Hudson said, deciding to swim back closer to the rocky northern shore than their usual route.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAbout three to five minutes after we\u2019d turned, Sarah started screaming, \u2018I see the sea lion,\u2019\u201d Hudson said, referring to one of her swimmates. \u201cWe assumed it was the same one; he was gone from the beach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It happened fast, she said. The sea lion was near them, with them. Her memory is blurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAdrenaline clicked on. I can\u2019t quite remember. I don\u2019t know if I got bumped. We were reacting,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cAt some point he swam right towards me and I put my hand out and pushed his head away.\u201d<\/p>\n He dived. He surfaced. He seemed in pursuit, she said. They used their swimming buoys as shields.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was swimming under us, over us. At one point I turned on my back and kicked at him with my fins.\u201d<\/p>\n They got close enough to the rocky northern wall of the beach area to hoist themselves up, hearts beating fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were recovering and I heard a scream,\u201d Hudson said.<\/p>\n The third swimmer in the group, who Hudson did not want to identify to protect her privacy, was about 100 yards offshore, with the sea lion. And terrified.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hudson saw the sea lion circling her body. The swimmer told her afterward that it felt like the sea lion was \u201cwrapping himself around me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe completely panicked,\u201d Hudson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n They yelled at their friend in the water to swim toward shore, to move. \u201cAnd she\u2019s just not swimming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n So Hudson grabbed her buoy and zipped into the water.<\/p>\n \u201cI went back, and escorted her back, pushing her and saying, \u2018You\u2019ve got to swim, you\u2019ve got to swim,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember much. Eventually, we got out of the water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The distressed swimmer was still panicky and not feeling well, Hudson said. Another swimmer took her to the hospital just to be sure she wasn\u2019t harmed. She had no physical injuries.<\/p>\n The sea lion, Hudson said, \u201che was all around us, all around us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n No way to know if Blondie was toxic without testing<\/p>\n The only way to diagnose domoic acid toxicity is through a necropsy after death, a marine animal autopsy, or veterinary tests, said Giancarlo Rulli, a spokesperson for the Marine Mammal Center<\/a>, a rescue, rehabilitation, and research nonprofit based in Sausalito that\u2019s the go-to place for reporting sick or injured marine animals in central and Northern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n Symptoms of the gruesome brain condition, which spreads to marine mammals from their infected food \u2014 sardines, anchovies, shellfish, which get it from toxic algae \u2014 can include odd or atypical behaviors such as seizures, aggression, nervous tics, lethargy, weakness and death.\u00a0<\/p>\n Without testing, it\u2019s impossible to know what was going on with Blondie.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rulli said the center had no reports on the Albany incidents, though he also said they\u2019re getting so many calls and messages in recent months that they\u2019re backed up and not getting back to everyone. Neither the city of Albany nor the East Bay Regional Park District had reports of sea lion sightings around Labor Day, according to spokespeople for each jurisdiction. The park district manages the shoreline as part of the Eastshore State Park.<\/p>\n Boobie swimmers said they had reported the Labor Day cluster sightings to the Marine Mammal Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur team is responding to an unusually high number of California sea lions suffering from domoic acid poisoning (toxicosis), with more than 150 rescued since the beginning of the year. A majority of those rescues, more than 110, have occurred since July 1,\u201d Rulli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of these sick marine mammals, he said, as in years past, are along the Pacific coast in Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Mateo and San Luis Obispo counties.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do respond to seals and sea lions along the East Bay shoreline each year but it\u2019s certainly not a major rescue location,\u201d Rulli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, Rulli said, of the center\u2019s 900 all-cause rescues in 2025, seven were from Alameda and Contra Costa counties, five of which were sea lions. \u201cI don\u2019t have a further breakdown than that,\u201d he said.\u00a0 This year, Rulli said, the center is seeing \u201ca few [rescues] in and around the Bay,\u201d but it\u2019s still minor.<\/p>\n Attacks are rare but domoic acid poisoning is on the rise<\/p>\n The center doesn\u2019t track marine mammal bites or attacks. But, they are extremely rare, Rulli said, especially compared with the numbers of animals at sea \u2014 an estimated 250,000 California sea lions call West Coast waters from Canada to Mexico home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey are uncommon considering the size of certain marine mammal populations in near-shore waters and the volume of beachgoers and swimmers that recreate annually along the California coast,\u201d Rulli said.<\/p>\n He said the center had seen \u201ca handful\u201d of bites or abrasions in years past in waters off Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo and San Francisco\u2019s Aquatic Park\u00a0 and \u201cother areas where marine life intersects with high traffic human watersport activity (including swimming, surfing and paddleboarding).\u201d<\/p>\n A 2015 study<\/a> of California sea lion and harbor seal bites in open waters found that from 2011 to 2014, 11 swimmers reported bites \u2014 seven from seals, three unidentified and one from a sea lion. Ten of the incidents happened in the San Francisco Bay, and one occurred in Puget Sound, Washington.<\/p>\n Tying bites to domoic acid is also rare.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2025, several high-profile, frightening sea lion bites occurred in Southern California<\/a>, off Long Beach (a 15-year-old girl during a life guard try-out), Oxnard (a surfer) and Monterey (a 9-year-old girl at a surf camp). These were suspected as tied to domoic acid because they correlated with testing of marine animals in the area and toxic algae blooms, but not proven.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s going on with any sea lion interaction, without testing, Rulli stressed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t conclude why an animal may have interacted with a given swimmer. Some of these animals may be sick or injured, others may be curious, others pursuing nearby food resources,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith or without the toxin, California sea lions can be unpredictable and territorial wild animals if feeling threatened or actively foraging. Adding domoic acid poisoning into the equation likely doesn\u2019t help re: unpredictability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And unpredictability is becoming a key word for devious and deadly domoic acid.<\/p>\n \u201cDomoic acid poisoning is not a new phenomenon in California. What has changed is the unpredictability, intensity and seasonality of these events,\u201d Rulli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The poison used to correlate more closely with certain conditions, like algae blooms in warm water. \u201cBut we are increasingly seeing toxin exposure outside of a predictable seasonal window and during both unusually cold and unusually warm ocean conditions,\u201d Rulli said. And while cases go up and down yearly, they appear trending upward, he said.<\/p>\n On average, the center responds to 70-90 domoic acid rescues along the California coastline yearly since 1998. This number is trending upward, with fluctuation. (In 2025, 50 domoic acid animals were rescued. Before this, it was 276 in 2024. Other high years include 2015, with 255, 2014 with 251, and 255 in 2009.)\u00a0<\/p>\n To anyone enjoying marine waters, splashing or swimming, the center advises vigilance around sea mammals, moving away and out of the water, as calmly and quietly as possible, Rulli said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to understand, Rulli said, \u201cyou are in their home habitat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Advice from the Marine Mammal Center<\/p>\n If you encounter a sea lion or other marine mammal that appears sick, injured, disoriented or otherwise distressed:<\/p>\n All wildlife can be unpredictable, but sick animals are particularly stressed and disoriented.<\/p>\n Keep your distance of at least 150 feet and do not attempt to touch, move or return the animal to the water. Exit the water calmly if approached in the ocean.<\/p>\n Keep your pet leashed and away from the animal.<\/p>\n Call The Marine Mammal Center\u2019s hotline at 415-289-7325..<\/p>\n Be patient with responders as their teams work through an exceptionally high volume of calls and rescues.<\/p>\n Blue Boobies swimmers remain \u2018on edge\u2019<\/p>\n Many of the Blue Boobies, whose roughly 100 marine lovers come from Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, Albany, Richmond and nearby areas, also swim with other open water groups. There\u2019s a close-knit community of ocean athletes, loosely organized under the umbrella groups of East Bay Open Water Swim<\/a>, and San Francisco Bay Open Water Swim<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since the Labor Day scare, many Boobies, including Hudson, have been back to the water at Albany.\u00a0<\/p>\n But with added caution.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was on edge. It was not the blissed-out swim I\u2019m used to. I was alert,\u201d she said of her first Bay dip after the incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow if there\u2019s a sea lion on the beach or in the water, it\u2019s a no go.\u201d<\/p>\n She stresses swimming with friends, the buddy system \u2014 never alone.<\/p>\n She also has an added reflection.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know this isn\u2019t normal,\u201d Hudson said of the dying sea creatures. \u201cThere is a lot of sadness. A lot of us have shed tears about these animals being dead on our beach.\u00a0 And we know this is just one small beach along a very large coast.\u201d<\/p>\n She calls it \u201ceco-grief.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re seeing it; the warming world is very obvious when you\u2019re in the water, when dying animals are showing up on your beach. It\u2019s our fault this is happening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As for swimming: \u201cI\u2019m taking it day by day, ultimately this is my religion, this is my therapy, this is my social life, and it\u2019s not something you give up easily.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know how long this is going to last. We don\u2019t know what the end point is.\u201d<\/p>\n …We rely on your support<\/p>\n We know that most readers don’t get to the end of the article. But you did! To support our in-depth, rock-solid reporting, please consider making a donation to our nonprofit newsroom today. We rely on our readers \u2014 particularly the ones who read the whole story!<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blondie the sea lion on Sept. 4, the day before the marine mammal pursued swimmers near Albany Bulb.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2113,2465,2466,143,145,144,1914,7662],"class_list":["post-467283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-animals","tag-home-highlight","tag-home-lead","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-san-francisco-bay","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d3a5ea7a-0653-408b-9c89-19c7e9cfd347.jpeg\")
Teri Hudson swimming in the Bay with her orange buoy. She was one of three swimmers involved in the frightening encounter with the sea lion. Courtesy: Teri Hudson<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Fur-seal.png\")
Colleen Haraden, a Blue Boobies swimmer, took a photograph of this fur seal, a type of sea lion, on Sept. 3. It was having what appeared to be seizures and died later that day, she said. Blue Boobies swimmers saw around three dead or seemingly ill sea lions over Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-23.png\")
A sea lion spotted at the Berkeley Marina on Sept. 10. Credit: Feleciana Feller<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Teri.png\")
Teri Hudson on a swim in the San Francisco Bay. \u201cHe was swimming under us, over us,\u201d she recalls of the sea lion encounter. \u201cAt one point I turned on my back and kicked at him with my fins.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-24-2560x3413.png\")
Blondie was hanging out on the beach, with yellow caution tape around him, when the swimmers arrived. He\u2019s pictured here on Sept. 4. Credit: Colleen Haraden<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/AP24214667471788.jpg\")
Channel Island Marine & Rescue Institute volunteers work alongside Vandenberg Space Force Base personnel to collect a urine sample from a beached sea lion to perform rapid testing and confirm for domoic acid ingestion in July 2024. Credit: Airman 1st Class Olga Houtsma\/U.S. Space Force via AP<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/AP02051802083.jpg\")
Volunteers at the Marine Mammal Care Center force-feed a young California sea lion, too ill to feed itself after being sickened by a naturally occurring poison found in microscopic sealife on May 18, 2002, in Los Angeles. Credit: AP\/Reed Saxon<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/81120491911__B09190D6-6208-49BE-85E8-CA0345FFDB67-preview-2560x1920.jpg\")
An informational sign about domoic acid and sea lions posted by a swimmer at Albany Beach, seen on Tuesday. It wasn\u2019t clear what happened to the dead sea lions. Credit: Kate Darby Rauch\u00a0<\/p>\n