By: Erica Heinisch

The Sea Lion Cove at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo doesn’t just look good, it’s a haven for rescued animals.

The new exhibit marked its one-year anniversary last week on Aug. 27.

Katie DeLorenzo, one of the four zookeepers specifically working for Sea Lion Cove, has been employed at Chaffee Zoo for a year. She said the zoo has seen an increase in guests since the opening of the exhibit.

“It’s very obvious. Everybody’s just raving about this exhibit,” DeLorenzo said. “They’re really excited to see the animals be able to go into a larger, more natural habitat as well as make room for other animals that need homes. They’re also really impressed with just the amount of different additions of the exhibit that we have that most places don’t have.”

Terri Mejorado, the director of marketing and development for Chaffee Zoo, said Measure Z, which was voted in by Fresno County residents in 2004, completely paid for the $10.5 million exhibit. Measure Z ensured that 0.1 percent of the new taxes went to Chaffee Zoo.

“Two-thirds of the money that we get has to be spent on new exhibits and improving large exhibits, with a third of it being able to go to administration,” Mejorado said. “So that has afforded us to be able to bring Sea Lion Cove here. It afforded us to bring Sting Ray Bay. It’s what we’ll build our African Adventures with. Hopefully, we’ll start building that in the next couple months.”

Mejorado said the cove took a year to design and another to construct. She also said the zoo is 100,000 visitors above where it was last year at this time. They have also seen an increase in their memberships.

“Four years ago, we had about 8,000 membership households,” Mejorado said. “Now, we’re over 14,000.”

DeLorenzo said Sea Lion Cove is one-of-kind and different from other sea lion exhibits around the world, with 200,000 gallons of water in the exhibit pool. The exhibit is modeled after Point Lobos, Calif.

“Our filtration system is something that’s very different,” DeLorenzo said. “Instead of using sand filters, we use something called perlite filters.­ The wave machine is also something that almost no one else has, especially in an exhibit pool. There’s just a lot that went into this… to make it look very natural and to also inspire visitors.”

Sea Lion Cove is home to three California sea lions, one harbor seal and two pelicans.

“The California sea lions names are Pismo, who’s 11; Avila, who is 5; and Catalina who is 5,” DeLorenzo said. “Our harbor seal’s name is Ariel, and she is 2 years old. And then the pelicans, their names are Monte and Cruise, and they’re also 2 years old.”

Five out of the six animals were rescued from the wild, DeLorenzo said. Ariel was bred in captivity in a zoo in Albuquerque, N.M.

“The pelicans have wing injuries that wouldn’t allow them to survive in the wild,” Delorenzo said. “Pismo is blind, Catalina is a shark-attack survivor. So, they all really lucked out coming here to Sea Lion Cove.”

DeLorenzo said the zoo gets their rescued animals from rehabilitation centers for one reason or another.

“Sometimes, in special circumstances, it won’t work or they’ll re-release them and they’ll keep coming back,” DeLorenzo said. “And that’s when they decide to place them in a zoo. And then zoos and aquariums, AZA [Association of Zoos and Aquariums], are all on a list basically saying they are willing if an animal needs a home to take those animals in.”

DeLorenzo also said they train the animals on-command behaviors to help the animals exercise and for medical purposes. She said some behaviors take a few days to train, while many of them take several months.

“Once you actually train the target behavior, that kind of behavior will probably just take three to four months to train an animal to do it in its entirety,” DeLorenzo said. “That might sound like a long time, but we think in long-term. Some can be trained in a couple of days, but a lot of behaviors can take six or even nine months to train because we are using all positive reinforcement.”

Examples of behaviors they train sea lions to accomplish on command are porpoising, lying down, opening their mouths, vocalizing and rolling on their stomach.

The head trainer of Sea Lion Cove, Sarah Romberger, is a current Fresno State student and has worked at Chaffee Zoo for several years. Romberger is a biology major student with chemistry and anthropology minors. She is anticipating graduation in 2014.

DeLorenzo and Mejorado both commented on how the community and Fresno State students can become active volunteers at the Chaffee Zoo. DeLorenzo said college and volunteer experience are important if you want to join the field.

“The biggest thing that you need to do is get experience and get a degree,” DeLorenzo said. “If you’re already in college, you’re on your way to that. But if you want to get that experience, you’re going to have to do something unpaid, usually that’s an internship or volunteering.”

Since the zoo is a nonprofit, Mejorado said that it would not be where it is if not for volunteers.

“We’re very lucky we have a few businesses that send large volunteer groups to us,” Mejorado said. “Some are families that have participated all year. But we also get sororities from Fresno State. We get individuals from Fresno State. If somebody is interested in working for the zoo and helping volunteer, there’s just a whole myriad of opportunities.”