Sea Life at Cove

Bravo to Marko Zalokar and others in their attempt to protect La Jolla sea life by creating a wildlife sanctuary at Seal Rock (Aug. 24). When I was born at the old Scripps Hospital in La Jolla in the 1950s, my mother could hear a constant thunderous chorus of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of seals and sea lions from her hospital bed. Their numbers and voices have sadly declined.

In our relentless pursuit of recreation, we humans claim and conquer so much as our own--forests, deserts, the seas--with often little or cruel regard to existing native species. Will we taunt, pelt rocks and drive away the remaining sea creatures of La Jolla Cove in our ignorance or arrogance? Or, for once, will we be magnanimous, and grant this tiny area of sea and rock to the seal lions and the seals, the true and original inhabitants?

STEPHANIE FERNEYHOUGH, San Diego