Apparently when sea lions go hunting, they leave their young to relax on the shore. Jim is the caretaker at Caldera, and his wife, Patti, had a sea lion for a pet when she was a kid. Patti's mom had been walking along the beach one day, and had seen a baby sea lion sitting there on the sand. Patti's mom assumed the baby sea lion had been abandoned, and so she took it home, kept it in the kitchen, bottle fed it, gave it access to the family swimming pool, and raised it as a member of her family. Patti grew to love her pet sea lion, and the sea lion grew to love his adoptive family. Eventually the sea lion grew too big to keep as a pet. It had become huge (as sea lions are wont to do), and so the verdict was decided to hand over the sea lion to the local aquarium. To great sadness, the exchange was scheduled, the transaction carried out, and within two weeks at the aquarium the sea lion had died — evidently of a broken heart.