A man arrested for stabbing a sea lion with a steak knife in Newport Beach late July was charged today with violating the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Hai Nguyen, 24 of Garden Grove, was fishing from a dock on the Balboa Peninsula when a sea lion came nearby. Authorities allege he then took out a steak knife and stabbed the animal several times. Witnesses called the police.

The 150-pound sea lion suffered wounds to its body and was brought in from the ocean by the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach. Animal care specialists there found the injuries so severe that the animal had to be euthanized.

Earlier reports from police said the sea lion took bait from the line of Nguyen’s fishing pole.

Sea lions have been plentiful in the Newport Harbor since the summer of 2005, when they started showing up in large numbers - some had even learned how to get aboard vessels, and sank a boat. There was also a report to the city that a mother and child were tipped over in their kayak by a sea lion.

The issue became so hot that the City Council held a session on how to deal with the increased sea lion population. At the time, boat owners started pulling wire through milk cartons and hanging it around the boats. Others put lawn chairs upside down on their swim steps.

Despite some people’s annoyance of the sea lions, the stabbing of one of the mammals was far too drastic, said Dean Gomersall, animal care supervisor at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.

Gomersall said the increased population of sea lions is nothing new with harbors along the coast. Since people populate the beach, the animals have to find food somewhere – and harbors are an ideal place for them to get scraps from fishing boats, Gomersall said.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act - passed in 1972 - makes it illegal to kill or harass sea lions. If someone wants to do something that would have an effect on sea lions, they must get a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
“I hope he is charged to the full extent, that way people will learn behavior like this is not acceptable,” he said.
Nguyen is charged with a misdemeanor count of illegally taking and attempting to kill a marine mammal. The federal charges carries a maximum penalty of one year in federal prison, and a $20,000 fine. He will be arraigned in September.

For more news from the coast, go to ocregister.com/beaches.

- Laylan Connelly
 

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