PMMC opens new, expanded rescue center in Laguna Canyon after three years

Just days before the official opening Monday, Oct. 12, of the newly rebuilt and expanded Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Canyon, two eager UC Irvine fellows met with the center’s distance-learning coordinator to preview their work for the coming year.

Eva Gonzalez, 20, an ecology and evolutionary biological sciences major, hopes to become a science researcher and helping at the center rescuing ill, injured, and entangled pinnipeds and cetaceans from Orange County’s coastline will be a great way to learn about the field. A drama and psychology major, Zenaida Guzman, 19, said she’s energized by being around children and hopes her passion for teaching and theatrical background will help her entertain and draw young visitors to the center.

Both fellows are taking advantage of PMMC’s newly expanded educational program, which, thanks to the $20 million, three-year renovation of the center’s red barn and its surrounding campus along Laguna Canyon Road, now has a whole new presence.

Construction of the new campus started in October 2023, and for the last couple of years, PMMC pivoted its care for marine mammals to a nearby field hospital set up in a portion of the city’s dog park, seeing more than 800 patients while there.

The field hospital, with ample room for the pinnipeds to stretch out on decks, proved useful as patient volumes surged, driven in part by massive toxic algae blooms along the Southern California coast. In 2024 alone, more than 1,000 sea lions and dolphins that fed on fish poisoned by the algae died as centers such as PMMC and others in the California Stranding Network raced to save them.

As part of its expansion, the center added a 1,600-square-foot classroom, doubling its on-site education space. With education at the roots of its animal care — it was co-founded in 1971 by John Cunningham, a Laguna Beach High School marine biology teacher who also lifeguarded, along with fellow lifeguard John Stauffer — PMMC puts a focus on learning from its rescue and rehab work.

Before the center closed down for construction, about 35,000 students annually participated in its educational programs. The center now expects to double that number in 2027.

Programs include after-school and virtual distance learning programs such as Healing Seals, which runs in hospitals nationwide and locally, including Rady Children’s Health of Orange County. The programming includes shows and personal interactions with children in those hospitals.

“Children get to learn about marine mammals and the patients in our hospital,” said Laura Frost, PMMC’s distance-learning and afterschool programs coordinator, adding that the goal is to engage the community and connect with children in hospitals who might be undergoing procedures similar to those the animals undergo.

“There was a kid being tube-fed and saw there were patients tube-fed here,” Frost said. “We got a call from the parent saying the kid wasn’t afraid anymore.”

The fellows program Gonzalez and Guzman are participating in is part of College Corps and runs on the AmeriCorps model, so it focuses on service and volunteerism. PMMC has been a part of the program for four years; this is the second year with UCI.

“They’re here for the full school year,” Frost said, “we can provide extensive training and support as each grows in their role.”

The program lets students serve their community while earning scholarships; they can receive up to $10,000 each year, including $7,000 in living allowances throughout the year and $3,000 in education awards upon completion of 450 hours.

Some duties include assisting with teaching students, with the goal of helping them learn and grow as educators.

“They’ll teach in classrooms, teach virtually, go out with the Whales on Wheels van, teach on site, and assist wherever we need help,” Frost said. “It’s a very broad job, but we usually tailor their interests and figure out what they would like to do best.”

So, Gonzalez and Guzman can key in on their main interests while also learning marine science on the job.

As part of the expansion, the center also has a new media center, sponsored by locals Greg and Barbara MacGillivray, that will help the education team broadcast PMMC’s distance-learning programs and speaker series to children at 17 affiliated hospitals nationwide.

The center also aims to make the hospital, which, following the renovations, now has dedicated treatment suites, including a viewing window for the public, and necropsy lab space, a marine mammal teaching hospital.

The goal is to connect with the next generation of students, ocean stewards, environmentalists, wildlife veterinarians, documentary students, and marine biology researchers, said lead veterinarian Dr. Alyssa Deming, who is also the center’s vice president of conservation medicine and ocean science.

Part of that includes creating opportunities for veterinary students to complete internships and externships at PMMC for hands-on experience in wildlife care, rescue, and research.

Dr. Kelsey Reames, PMMC’s associate veterinarian, officially joined PMMC in August, but she was no stranger to the center. While in veterinary school at Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine in Arizona, she completed an externship at the marine center and the nearby Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach to broaden her experience in aquatic animal medicine.

After graduation, Reames continued to volunteer at the center in animal care and helped Deming during the massive algae blooms in 2025.

Last week, she helped showcase some of the center’s new areas and explained why giving the public more access to see the pinniped and cetacean patients supports the center’s mission and helps people care more about what the center does and why it matters.

“I think people maybe don’t really realize how much goes into rehabilitating just a single animal,” Reames said, pointing out new viewing areas at the animal care suite and a noninvasive underwater viewing window that lets people see sea lions and seals being prepped for release to the ocean. The center now has 10 pools, a more than 40% increase in space for the recovering mammals.

“When people say, ‘Yeah, they’re rehabilitating animals,’ it’s not just, ‘Yeah, we’re feeding them.’ We’re actually doing procedures on them, putting them under anesthesia, getting blood, and doing a full physical exam on them and learning about every aspect of their health,” Reames said. “If people can see that, they can learn what we do and know every single animal that comes through is getting that same level of care.”

Now, with all the talk of an impending super El Niño, Reames said those touring PMMC or participating in the distance learning programs and speaker series will see the real-life impacts of the ocean-atmosphere climate system beyond the recent tropical weather, surging waves, and floods that have made headlines in recent days.

In mid-summer, the center, which has had far fewer rescues in the 2026 season than the 350-plus the year before, was seeing signs of warmer-water impacts. While pups born on the rookeries in June 2025 were way down, Deming also saw many more malnourished juveniles who clearly struggled to find prey.

The fact that they all seemed to have good body condition indicated to her that food for them, mainly sardines and anchovies, became scarcer closer to the summer months. She worries those indicators signal even worse news for the new crop of pups born this summer.

The marine heat wave that has warmed local waters is pushing prey into deeper, colder waters, and the yearling sea lions struggle to dive deep enough to find food, she said. That could, she said, lead to more stranded animals later this year and into early next year.

“We’ll see how many animals we get, and once we have that data, we’ll come back to the public and let them know the impacts that this kind of condition had on the species,” Reames said. “We’ve already started to see a lot of weird animals in general come through with how warm the water is right now, and I think everyone can learn about patterns and trends and what to expect and also better help the animals as a population in the future, too.”

Reames said she expects to see much more malnutrition.

“I think it will be more severe for them,” she said, especially if conditions also come together to create an environment for another toxic bloom.

Northern California rescue centers already have had to struggle with that this year. In August, the Marine Mammal Care Center in Sausalito treated more than 150 sea lions impacted by a toxic bloom.

And if that happens here again, Reames said PMMC, thanks to the added pools and treatment space, is ready to gear up for patients.

And, with a new water reclamation treatment system, animal care staff won’t need to move animals just to empty their pools, something they used to do three times a day, PMMC officials said.

The $5 million reclamation center will recycle 5 million gallons of water each year.

NOAA officials certified PMMC for its marine mammal care in a final inspection of the campus last week. As part of the California Stranding Network, rescue groups must follow federal rules to rehabilitate wild marine mammals, and their facilities must meet official government standards and local permits.

With no patients in-house now, Reames said the PMMC crew is considering an extra-special name for the first animal that will come through the doors in three years — all of PMMC’s patients are named.

“It has to be really special.”