Victoria, B.C. - A juvenile male Steller sea lion is expected to make a full recovery after being entangled in ropes that had tethered it for days at Race Rocks.

A team of marine-mammal experts performed a brief but tricky rescue on the four- to five-year-old male Thursday that ended with the mammal swimming free.

It was an unusual but fortunate situation to have the 320-kilogram animal tethered to the rocks at the ecological reserve in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and unable to swim away.

“With any kind of sedating, the [sea lions’] first response is to jump in the water and they sink and drown,” said Paul Cottrell, Pacific marine mammal co-ordinator with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“We got confirmation on Wednesday it was actually tethered.”

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