Hansen: If sea lions were ugly would we be so concerned?

It’s no secret that sea lions are the chocolate Labradors of the sea.

That’s why people love them — their big, doleful eyes, their affinity for water, their uncanny ability to bark.

So when the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach throws a fundraiser for them, people show up. It was elbow to elbow — and flipper to flipper — on Sunday at the Madison Square & Garden Café, where more than 200 people sipped on adult beverages and donated to raffles.

Executive Director Keith Matassa gave a brief speech highlighting the ongoing needs at the center, which has been facing a large increase in the number of distressed mammals. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 3,000 pups have come ashore in California this year, 17 times the average.

Adding to the challenges was the deliberate poisoning of 17 sea lions with chlorine on April 28. All but three were rehabilitated and released on Main Beach on Tuesday in a ceremony marking the largest release of sea lions at one time.

Police still have not found a culprit in the attack, despite a combined $5,000 reward from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Orange County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Anyone with information about the incident can contact detectives David Gensemer or Abe Ocampo at (949) 497-0377 or the NOAA hotline at (800) 853-1964.

At the fundraiser, it was less about the grim reminders of the crime and more about the satisfaction of doing something good — within limits.

Alice Harmon of Laguna Beach felt it was important to help when she could but admitted society has many problems.

“There’s a lot more hungry people than there are sick sea lions,” she said. “I wish there was more interest in helping humans.”

Aside from the comparison of nonhuman to human suffering, scientists have complained for years that cute animals get saved but ugly ones don’t.

Within zoos and conservation circles, it’s a known fact that if you want to save a species, pick the fuzzy, cuddly one with big eyes that cradles its babies. The more human-like the better.

Pop quiz:

Panda or proboscis monkey?

Sand cat or sea slug?

Monarch butterfly or blobfish?

Both humorous and serious, the Ugly Animal Preservation Society in England has since 2012 been holding comedy events that poke fun at our obsession with saving cute animals over ugly ones, and using in the process disproportionate amounts of funding that could go elsewhere.

Each year, the members vote on an ugly endangered species to have as its mascot. This year’s winner is the blobfish, a deep-sea-dwelling gelatinous mass so ugly that it earned a cameo speaking part in “Men in Black 3.”

It’s not out of the question to try to save talking animals. We have been personifying animals for years in movies and popular culture.

In fact, scientific research lists the attributes that make animals attractive to humans. Ernie Small, a research scientist from Canada, published a paper in the science journal Biodiversity a few years ago and presented it at a conference on endangered species.

According to his work, the successful animal will, among other things:

• Be useful to humans.

• Display human-like traits, such as a high forehead and expressive eyes.

• Be fierce and large — but not too big. It’s hard to save beached whales, for example.

• Live above ground, preferably with adorable cubs or kittens. By contrast, no naked mole-rats.

• Not smell bad.

• Have nice, bright colors or at least designer pastels.

• Eat good, clean food. We tend to abhor scavengers that eat roadkill. While we’re on the topic, possums are free to be extinct anytime now.

• Not have too many warts, bad teeth or excessive drooling.

All joking aside, here’s the thing: We’re losing.

Last year the World Wildlife Fund released a study that said the world’s vertebrate population had declined by 50% since 1970. And the problem is probably bigger than that because we’ve only been able to identify a tiny fraction of the known endangered species. This decline is being called the “Sixth Extinction,” or the first mass extinction in history caused by man-made factors.

So back on Main Beach on Tuesday, while everyone was cheering the release of 14 sea lions, I watched with some amusement as the mammals raced to the ocean like puppy dogs.

If they hadn’t waddled so adorably, if they hadn’t looked back at us humans with those sad, sad eyes, would we care as much?

I don’t know.

But I do know that after all was said and done, most of us humans piled into our gasoline cars and drove away, including me.

And that’s the bigger problem.

DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at [email protected].