Sea lion barking beats trash trucks

In the electronic information age, there are certain rules to which

we all must adjust. Some folks like to send their messages in 100%

lower case text because, I suppose, they simply do not have the time

to press the “Shift” key and create capital letters.

Some write in all caps, though I have been told that that is the

e-quivalent (my word) of shouting.

One concession we all have to make is that e-mail communication

sacrifices formality for speed. Please keep this in mind as I reveal

the contents of two e-mails I recently received because with one, I

have only a first name, and with the other, I have only the last

name. I have the permission of both writers to share the contents.

The subject was and is sea lions -- specifically, the sea lions

barking up a storm in Newport Beach. As difficult as it may be for

some to imagine, there are some folks who like the sound of barking

sea lions.

“It disappoints me that people find frustration in the ‘barking’

seals,” wrote Kristen. “I love coming home and hearing the echo of

the seals choir traveling up through the canyon. I also awake on the

weekends, when the fog is dense, to the little joyful reminder of

hearing the barking seals and feeling comforted that I’m fortunate to

live so close to the ocean.”

The sound of “barking” sea lions as music. I love it. Before I

could even think that here is someone who has the right perspective,

I read the rest of Kristen’s note.

“I think, we as people, need to remember to put and keep things in

perspective and understand these sounds that represent ‘disturbing

noises’ to some, quite often remind others about the simple things in

life and the gratefulness in being alive to experience them.”

Kristen went on to rate the sea lion music as zero on a scale of

one to 10 with 10 being worst. It’s a “tiny issue” as far as she is

concerned.

Apparently, S. Murphy agrees.

“I’m a Balboa Island resident, and I love the sound of the sea

lions barking -- even in the night,” Murphy wrote. “I moved from New

York a few years ago, so I find their voices a novelty -- much nicer

than hearing garbage trucks in the night, as we did in Manhattan, or

having the planes from John Wayne drown out telephone conversations.

“I’ve also noticed that the noise the sea lions make varies from

season to season and year to year. I agree with your premise that

nature will take care of it.”

Murphy proved that we do not have to look only to the Gulf Coast

for a proper perspective. Here’s someone who traded garbage trucks

for barking sea lions and now views them as a John Wayne jet

silencer.

Everything is relative.

Last weekend, I found a passage in a book that I first read about

30 years ago. “God and Mr. Gomez” is the wonderful tale of the late

columnist Jack Smith’s attempt to build a small house in Baja

California in the early ‘70s.

Toward the end of the book, Smith writes of an encounter with a

rattlesnake in Baja, which he did not hesitate to kill with a garden

hoe. There was a message in the book for those who believe the seal

lions have the right of way.

“The moralists, the ecologists and the nature lovers who live

fourteen stories up in their urban concrete towers may protest that a

rattlesnake is one of God’s creatures, too, and entitled to his own

half-acre,” wrote Smith. “They may even say that the rattlesnake was

there first, and I was the intruder. I say none of us lives on ground

that was not once upon a time inhabited by reptiles.”

This is not a rationale to kill the sea lions. I am not in favor

of that. The passage merely supports the belief that the land -- and

the sea -- undergoes changes of occupancy that are a normal part of

our evolution.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer.

Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at

(714) 966-4664 or send story ideas to [email protected].

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