Yes, there are California sea lions, even a show featuring them at the San Diego Zoo. Wegeforth Bowl is the oldest show area at the San Diego Zoo and houses the Zoo's trained population of California sea lions. You can find it near the Zoo entrance between the Reptile House and the Children's Zoo. I worked there for eight years, training sea lions and other animals for presentation in shows and other public forums to educate and entertain people about animals and the natural world.

You can read about my first experience working a marine mammal, Corky the harbor seal in this hub. I know you've been wanting more though. So if you've ever wondered 'how do they get them to do that stuff?' some of the answers are below.

With food! Most mornings I was up to my elbows in roughly two hundred pounds of icy fish. The day started with 'Break-out.' Break-out was our term for thawing and weighing out the fish we would use during the day for our sea lions and harbor seal.

Marine mammals eat fish. Obviously. But feeding sea lions is not as simple as just throwing fish at them. Each animal's daily ration of fish was a carefully calculated and measured meal. We fed a combination of fish species, including smelt, mackerel, herring, squid and pompano. Other types of fish would be added in or subtracted depending on seasonal availability, but the above list formed the base of the animal's diet.

Calculating how much of each type of fish was done by Weg Bowl's supervisor. I know it involved the caloric value of each fish species, how many calories in a pound and the weight of the individual sea lion, but the details of the formula may as well be Sanskrit to me. I only know she did the calculations and managed the sea lion's weight and performance beautifully. From these calculations she would then determine how much each animal was to be given of each type of fish.

Break-out actually started the night before. We would pull from the freezer the total amount of fish and put it in sinks to thaw overnight. Leaving the fish in boxes and bags insured that by morning, the fish was thawed, but still had ice on it and it was fresh enough to feed. Even through gloves, it was cold enough to chill my hands to the bone and by the time I was done thawing and weighing I was covered with fish slime and scales. Pompano are a flat-ish fish with sharp spines and we would squeeze them to make them easier for the sea lions to swallow. Guess what happens when you squeeze them hard enough? Their guts and blood squirt out and splash all over your shirt, making you look like a trauma victim. And sometimes the spines get driven into your palm. Ah, the glamourous life of an animal trainer! I think I smelled like fish my entire eight years, no matter how many times I changed clothes and showered. Which naturally did wonders for my dating life.

Each type of fish was weighed according to the daily feeding schedule and put in a bucket labeled for each animal.  Herring and mackerel are fattier fish and help sea lions put on weight, smelt and squid less so.  Each sea lion would get more or less of each type depending on their weight for the week and whether they needed to gain or lose pounds.  Throughout the day we would pull a mixture of fish from each sea lion's bucket, weighing it and putting into side buckets.  Side buckets hung from our belt and contained the amount of food to be fed during training sessions and show segments.  Typically, each animal would have four or five sessions a day, with his total food amount divided into them.

You might be wondering why we so carefully calculated, measured out our sea lion's food. Because training and performing in shows is work, requiring a considerable expenditure of energy. Like any athlete, food intake needs to be managed to prevent putting on or losing too much weight.

In the wild, a sea lion must find, hunt and catch his food. Naturally this involves some effort on the part of the sea lion; after all, a fish is not going to drop conveniently into his mouth. No, in the wild, a sea lion must work to eat. Consequently, in a zoo or aquarium setting the trainers or keepers must manage how much each sea lion is fed to maintain optimal weight and health. Hence the calculations and weighing of fish described above. Our sea lions were weighed weekly and fluctuations in weight resulted in changes in the ratio of fish types as well as overall weight of fish of fish fed.

Our California sea lion population was entirely male. Male sea lion feeding and activity levels vary widely throughout the year. During the fall and winter they feed and forage, eating as much as they can hold and gaining weight. This is because spring and summer are breeding season. Male sea lions think of just one thing, establishing a harem of females and making as many sea lion pups as they can. Well, you can't be breeding and protecting your harem if you're out in the ocean looking for food. Male California sea lions in the wild live off the blubber layer they build up during the earlier months, rarely leaving the beach for the water.

Which made shows in summer somewhat problematic. How do you get a sea lion to work in shows during the summer, our busiest season with double then number of shows compared to the rest of the year, when all he wants to do is lie on the deck? You manage their weight and reduce their food intake. During the summer, our sea lions ate maybe eight or ten pounds of fish a day. Compare this to mid-winter when some of them would consume up to thirty-five pounds of fish daily.

During the summer, we would reduce the number of sea lions in a show as well as the duration of the segment, utilizing other animals in the area to round out the presentations. You might see one or two sea lions in the summer, whereas in the winter a show might feature all of our sea lions.

The polished performance seen in shows is the result of many training sessions. Each behavior the animal performs, from simply getting in or out of the water to a complex series of actions all start with the very simplest and basic of steps.

An untrained, or naive, sea lion is first just bridged and fed, or reinforced. We used clickers, so initial training sessions are a lot of clicks and a lot of fish, and not a lot else. The sound of the click quickly becomes paired in the the sea lion's mind with fish, as does the trainer. In these first sessions, the trainer is looking for the sea lion to stay calm, stay in the water and make eye contact. These discrete actions are the criteria the trainer actively watches for during training sessions. Each time the animal does any or all of these he is bridged and reinforced. Every click of that clicker results in a handful of fish in these early sessions. Initial training sessions are short and very positive and the goals of these sessions are: to establish the trainer as positive, establish the bridge and pair it with food, and to teach the sea lion to look at the trainer - making and maintaining eye contact.

The next step is to introduce the target; both the concept of 'targeting' and the physical target itself. Usually a blue and white buoy on a three or four foot stick is the first target. The sea lion is first just shown the target, bridged and reinforced for looking at it and staying calm. The target is then moved in close to the sea lion until it is within his reach and ultimately touching his nose with the trainer bridging and reinforcing at every step. The sea lion then learns to touch his nose to the target and hold it there until bridged. Once this concept is established, the sea lion can be taught to generalize to touching his nose, targeting, on the trainer's hand or moving a body part (like a flipper) towards a trainer's hand or the buoy target.

It is from these early concepts; eye contact and attention, the bridge/reinforcement and targeting that all other behaviors are shaped from. Each one is critical and once you have them established, training all other behaviors is a matter of breaking them down into small steps that the animal can be easily led through. What can be trained? That depends solely on the skill and ingenuity of the trainer.

But how do you get to a finished behavior? Something show-worthy? A simple behavior, such as the sea lion shaking his head 'yes' is trained by targeting the sea lion's head into the desired positions, then bridging and reinforcing. Target the head up, bridge/reinforce, target the head down, bridge/reinforce.  The sea lion will eventually anticipate putting his head down after he raises it up, and the trainer will bridge and reinforce this.  Next, the trainer introduces the signal, or cue for the headshake 'yes' behavior.  Eventually the sea lion learns to anticipate that when the signal is given he raises his head up, then brings it down, then back up, etc., until he's bridged.  Every little step along the way is bridged and reinforced.

Does this all sound incredibly painstaking and drawn out?  It is.  And this is just one, simple behavior.  Training isn't hard, but it requires the trainer to be vigilant at all times.  Every behavior must be built one step at a time.  If the trainer isn't paying attention, and the sea lion is bridged and reinforced at the wrong time, then he learns the wrong thing and you have to back up and start over.

Our animals worked for their food. I know there are critics of this out there. I also know that there are animals in sub-standard zoos and aquariums living in horrible conditions. The point of this Hub is not to engage in debate, but, I do have these few things to say on these matters.

Everything on this planet works for it's food. Even you. Some have greater or lesser choice on how hard they work, or what type of work they do. But everything has no choice in this one aspect, everything has to work to eat.

Sub-standard zoos are a tragedy and should be shut down and those involved prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Just like sub-standard doctors, lawyers, police officers, etc., etc., etc. Every profession has it's less-than-savory members, but does that mean we should get rid of all doctors? police? lawyers? No. You support the good ones and stop the bad ones.

Our animals at Wegeforth Bowl were almost all bred in captivity. Those few that came from the wild were beached animals deemed non-releasable by marine mammal rehabilitation facilities. One sea-lion, Nelson, had a rather unusual story, but more on that later.  

Every professional in the animal field recognizes that in a perfect world no one would need zoos. We would all respect and protect Nature's delicate web. Anyone see that happening anytime in the near future? In my years at the San Diego Zoo, I saw thousands of people have their eyes opened to the wonders of animals and the natural world and gain a little more respect for it. That was the focus of our show. Our animals were trained to highlight their natural strength and ability. Where is the difference between marveling at the strength of a sea lion balancing on his front flippers and applauding a human acrobat who does the same? Yes, we used humor and entertainment during our shows, but it in no way detracted from the message. Not everyone who goes to the Zoo loves Discovery Channel-type documentaries. But give someone a chance to meet an animal they've only read or seen pictures of? That can change attitudes. We were able with our animals and our shows to give people an up-close, sometimes personal encounter with wild animals. Such encounters are once-in-a-lifetime and never fail to make a life-long impact.