THE USEFUL SEA LION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 20

THE USEFUL SEA LION

TRACKING SUBMARINES,

It is no longer a secret that during the Great War the sea lions played their part in tracking submarines in the earlystages of the conflict before they were superseded by the more reliable hydrophone (says the London "Daily Telegraph"). - The. sea - lions touring the halls • were commandeered and put through v rigorous course of training in a London swimming bath. The most efficient recruitt. were then taken to the west coast, where they were taught to report on any unusual vigrations under water by at once coming to the surface and barking vigorously. A long cord was attached to the aea lion connecting him with a scarlet buoy, so that he could always be kept in sight. The sea lion corps developed but one deserter, and for all that is known of him he may still bo at large in the Channel. Quick as the Zoo sea lions are to capture fish under water, or when thrown to them in the air, they are not always quite quick enough. In .winter the gulls haunt the sea lion pond at feeding time, and sometimes get their first. The gulls hold the tramp card—they can fly. The sea lion, like most other creatures, plays its part in the scheme of things, as the following story goes to show. Up to a few years ago the guano deposits on a group of lonely islands off the Californian coast were bringing in a fortune to a certain company. To-day thero is not enough guano left there to fertilise a window.box. The tragedy is explained by the fact that man attempted to upset'the "balance of nature." The sea birds that deposited the guano lived on fish, which they shared with a large colony of sea lions —thousands upon thousands of them. The directors of the company conceived the notion that if the sea lions were removed there would be more fish, and as a natural sequence there would be more guano. Rifles soon eliminated the sea lions, but from that time onwards the birds that laid the golden manure died or departed. The company promoters had failed to realise that the far-ranging sea-lions had acted as so many sheepdogs and rounded. up the fish until they came within easy reach of the birds.