By Patricia Arrigoni and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
The Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands, the largest hospital in the world for seals, sea lions and other pinnipeds, reopened to the public in June, after a 2 ½ year Covid hiatus. While it was closed, the Center undertook a major remodel, resulting in lots of new exhibits and informative signage.
Today the Center treats hundreds of patients a year, and rescues stranded animals throughout 600 miles of the California coast, from Mendocino to San Luis Obispo. As a teaching hospital, the Center also conducts research into conditions leading to these strandings, including climate change, ocean pollution, and human-caused problems such as entanglements and over-fishing.
This year is the Center’s 47th anniversary since it was founded by three volunteers. One of the three, Patricia Arrigoni, was a newspaper writer and editor at the time. She has written her recollections of the Center’s development, entitled “The Marine Mammal Center — How It All Began.” Here are some lightly edited excerpts from her book:
There were three of us involved in the creation of the Center, which opened in 1975 and which we named the "California Marine Mammal Center." (The state name was dropped later as it was thought to limit fund-raising efforts, and it caused some people to consider he Center a government facility).
Paul Maxwell, Lloyd Smalley and I had all actively worked for a small natural science Museum named after famed Arctic explorer, Louise A. Boyd, when we met. It was located at 76 Albert Park Lane in San Rafael [the home of Wildcare today]. I had served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees; Paul was our hired Executive Director and Lloyd was the Animal Curator. Paul, who had moved on to take a position with the County Superintendent of School's Office directing an outdoor education program, began to think about having a place to release rehabilitated wild animals and birds. He also had a strong personal interest in marine mammals which started with a rescue experience some ten years earlier. Lloyd was concerned with providing better animal facilities, especially for marine mammals needing rehabilitation. The two men began to look around for a site to accomplish their goal and it was Paul who came up with the idea of the abandoned Nike missile site in the Marin Headlands above the Golden Gate Bridge. I was brought in as a facilitator.
We were all wide-eyed, enthusiastic and undaunted by the enormity of what we had in mind and, amazingly enough, we succeeded with the help of thousands of grassroots volunteers.
The museum at that time contained exhibits of live reptiles and animals, including a bear cub that grew too large for its cage (though a massive fund-raising effort that resulted in a new facility corrected that), A small pool was used for the rehabilitation of birds and marine mammals. Orphaned animals being brought to the museum were a regular part of its services and Smalley became concerned that the facilities needed to be upgraded for their care. He became especially interested in marine mammals.
"Getting food and medicine into a sea lion or an elephant seal was an ordeal of hit and misses, and trial and error," he wrote to author Joe Quirk when providing him information for the Center's book, “Call to the Rescue.” He experimented with "stomach tubes containing fish milkshakes loaded with vitamins."
Patricia Arrigoni was married to Peter Arrigoni, a former Marin County Supervisor, who died in 2018. She became involved with the Boyd Natural Science Museum in the 1960s when women's guilds were organized throughout the County of Marin to provide financial support for the museum. She recalls:
When Paul Maxwell called me to help with establishing a cooperative wildlife rehabilitation center, I became as enthusiastic as he and Smalley. We all began scouring the county for a site. When Paul suggested the old Nike missile site at Fort Cronkite, we all thought it would be perfect, and I went to work politically to obtain it.
After a letter-writing campaign to everyone from County Supervisors to Senator Alan Cranston, the Board of Supervisors unanimously endorsed the idea and urged the director of the Golden Gate Recreation Area, which had taken over the old missile site, to “look with favor on Mr. Smalley’s request to establish the Center at Fort Cronkhite.” The GGNRA issued a permit for use of the site in July 1974, and the Center opened there in 1975.
Visitors are now welcome at the Center Fridays through Mondays, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free, but reservations are required to control crowd size. Reservations may be made on the Center’s website: https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/visit/getting-here. Pat Arrigoni’s book is available at Marin County libraries.
PHOTO FROM “THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER — HOW IT ALL BEGAN.”
Facilities were rudimentary when the Boyd Museum first started treating patients