Hungry Sea Lion Goes To Dine At Ritzy San Diego Restaurant

 A hungry sea lion awaits a menu at the fancy
The Marine Room restaurant in San Diego. 

If you're really hungry, one solution to the problem is head off to a restaurant.

So it was in San Diego recently, when a customer arrived at tony The Marine Room restaurant right on the waterfront there.

The customer, though, was female sea lion pup, who hopped up onto a seat at a booth in the restaurant and looked like she expected a waiter any second now.

The Marine Room is the kind of place that serves fancy shmancy dishes like "ginger Kalbi lacquered tofu" and "ahi tuna and foie rossini."

Whatever.

The sea lion apparently came from the beach, up a ramp and through a restaurant door that had been left open by a cleaning crew.

The sea lion didn't actually get to have dinner there. A team from SeaWorld San Diego arrived and took it to its animal rehab center.

The serious note in all this is there is something wrong with the sea lion population in California. Many of them, especially young ones are starving and severely underweight.

This one, about eight months old was half her normal weight. Personnel at the animal rescue center are trying to get the sea lion's strength and weight up. They then hope to return her to the wild.

At last report, the San Diego Union-Tribune tells us the sea lion is getting better and gaining weight at SeaWorld, which is a good sign.