This fellow is baby Guadalupe fur sea, nicknamed Raoul. Somehow he ended up 380 miles from home and was picked up on the beaches of Santa Barbara. He has been recovering at the Marine Mammal Center for the last couple of months and is almost ready to be released back into the wild, but first he has to demonstrate that he knows how to catch fish from his wading pool. Although I don't usually photograph "captive" animals, he was too cute to resist. He will probably be released at San Miguel Island since the trip to Guadalupe would be difficult and at San Miguel there are fewer White Sharks to contend with.
