The Cutest Rehab

This video is funny and sweet. It restores my faith in human beings. Even Amy Winehouse would love it. Maybe.

Produced by Bluevoice, it shows a bunch of volunteers from Orca, a Peruvian nonprofit, as they rescue and rehabilitate sea lion and fur seal pups orphaned by fishing nets and disease.

Part of the rehab involves the volunteers releasing their inner sea lions. You know, barking, socializing, and climbing all over each other, just like pinnipeds do.

The heroic part: these volunteers work in the seriously cold waters of the Peru Current. They have no money for wetsuits and tough it out for hours in soggy jeans.

Bluevoice is trying to raise the money to test tissue samples and figure out why all the seal mothers are dying.

(First seen on my secret addiction, the antidote to bad news, CuteOverload.)

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.

Comments

Well done to all at Bluevoice for the fantastic work they do.

Posted by: Fair Trade on 07/16/08 at 3:18 AM Respond

These young Peruvians are true heroes. They have tracked illegal whaling, discovered diseases n sea lions that were not known to exist in South America and rescued many sea lions and other marine mammals.

Posted by: John Jones on 07/16/08 at 6:29 AM Respond

this is great. seriously inspiring and indeed restorative of one's faith in human beings....makes me want to get out there myself. THANK YOU!

Posted by: iheartjuliawhitty on 07/16/08 at 7:05 AM Respond

Dumb [deleted]...Probably just signed that poor babies death warrant. Seals don't have immunities to human born deseaes. You see a young seal left alone on the beach, leave it alone. It's mother will most likely return in alittle while. She's just out getting as bite to eat. You don't want seals getting comfortable with human contact. They swim up to a fishing boat, looking for a friend,.. they get shot.

Posted by: carlos on 07/16/08 at 9:45 AM Respond

Any one else think they look like a bunch of crazy dumb a**es on the beach acting like sea lions and only signing these pups to their death by getting them comfortable and dependable around humans?

Hey Guys, please leave the rehab to the Marine Biologists and to Mother nature! OH and act like humans!

Posted by: FoxCross on 07/16/08 at 5:04 PM Respond

This is retarded. This is nothing more than a bunch of hippies molesting sea lions. This isn't pretty or beautiful, it's weird... These foolish hippies need to go back to their communes. Love and peace doesn't rehabilitate baby sea lions. Professional's in this field do though; please stop harassing and dooming these poor animals by making them think humans wont try to kill them.

Posted by: Yeah Right on 07/16/08 at 6:00 PM Respond

Sounds like sheeps...

Posted by: Hans on 07/17/08 at 12:09 AM Respond

Here's a radical suggestion, gentle readers: follow the embedded links in the blog. That way you can speak from an informed point of view. Orca, the operation rehabbing the pinipeds, is run by Carlos Yaipen-Llanos, a veterinarian who specializes in working with marine mammals.

Posted by: Julia Whitty on 07/17/08 at 2:32 PM Respond