Casey Mclean looks out over a 14,000-square foot construction site in the shadows of residential buildings and boatyards of Des Moines, 30 minutes south of Seattle. Right now, it looks like the world’s smallest state fair in mid-setup, with a large tent and modular building free of decoration, but the bones of what will be the state’s first large speciality marine wildlife hospital are all there, oriented around the facility’s hallmarks: two deep rehabilitation pools designed to hold 2,000-pound animals.
“I don’t think this has really sunk in yet,” Mclean says, betraying a smile from behind her seal-print face mask.
Mclean is a veterinary nurse and executive director of Sea Life Response Rehab and Research (SR3), and the facility represents the culmination of nine years of work for her team. When the hospital opens in a month or two, Mclean believes it could serve about 100 animals a year, a place where they can receive medical treatment, recuperate and learn to eat on their own before going back to sea.
Puget Sound’s booming human population creates immense challenges for marine animals. Pollution, boat traffic, warming waters, wildlife-fishery conflicts and more have all increased over the past few decades. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show an average of 578 animals strand — that is, wind up on shore dead or in need of care — on Washington coastlines every year. And those are just the ones we find: Over 90 percent of animals in distress wash up unreported, in places where humans aren’t, or drop to the bottom of the ocean before anyone knows they need help.