Shot in the head, bitten by a shark, Tacoma’s Bjorn isn’t your average blind sea lion
Bjorn had some unlucky encounters before he was rescued off the coast of Southern California.
The sea lion had been shot in the head, causing him to go blind. He also had a scar on his lower abdomen indicating he’d been bitten by a shark.
In 2019, he was taken to a rehabilitation center in Los Angeles called Marine Mammal Care Center. Workers there helped the underweight sea lion pack on some pounds and named him Bjorn after a character on the show, “The Vikings.” Bullet fragments remain in his head.
Now that Bjorn is healthy and weighing in at 400 pounds, he’s making his home at Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. Visitors can see him for the first time this weekend.
“Bjorn has a second chance, thanks to the dedication and hard work of so many people,” said Karen Wolf, the zoo’s head veterinarian.
Keepers in Tacoma have never worked with a blind sea lion, so there’s been lots of innovation and learning since Bjorn arrived in May. They’re using tapping noises to tell the sea lion when it’s time to eat and teaching him verbal cues to help navigate his new habitat. “Water” tells him when he’s close to his pool, and cues like “on deck,” “follow,” “up,” “down” and “back” let him know what his caretakers want him to do.
The nearly 10-year-old sea lion acted as a surrogate mother to rescued pups at the Marine Mammal Care Center, so Bjorn is expected to bond well with three other sea lions at Point Defiance Zoo.
“He’s a very special animal to us, and we’re thrilled that Point Defiance is able to provide a home for animals like Bjorn that cannot be released back onto the wild,” said Amber Becerra, the care center’s president.
Bjorn could not be released back into the wild because of his blindness.
California sea lions live in the waters from Prince William Sound in Alaska, along the western coast of the United States and into Mexico. They eat rockfish, salmon, anchovies, krill and squid and often are hunted by sharks and orcas.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 1:54 PM.
