Two rescued California sea lions made their debut at the Tulsa Zoo today.
Three-year-old Reyes and four-year-old Cisco were in bad shape. Reyes had a badly infected eye, and Cisco had been bitten by a shark.
"So they went to the Marine Mammal Care Center, where they nursed them back to health, and they're doing great," said trainer Kaleigh Jablonski. "After it was deemed that they could not be released back into the wild, they were slated to come here, where we were able to give them a permanent home at the Tulsa Zoo."
The two sea lions are in good shape now. They’ve been at the Tulsa Zoo since last year but went through a quarantine period and had to wait for some changes to sea lion cove.
Jablonski said she and other zoo trainers have been working to build trust with the animals.
"The foundation of a lot of the training we do is to build up that relationship with those animals for them to learn to trust us and for us to learn to trust them," Jablonski said. "It's probably my favorite part of the job, being able to do that, and then through that relationship and through our training process, we're able to give them the best possible care."
The young sea lions will take turns with 21-year-old Dorsey being in the zoo’s main exhibit.
