They have been ending up on beaches, train tracks, and even public washrooms. A food crisis has caused more than 1,600 emaciated sea lion pups to end up stranded on southern California's Pacific coast.

At six months of age, a sea lion is still being nursed by its mother. But because of a scarcity of food near their breeding grounds, the mothers of California sea lions are being forced to range further afield for nutrients -- and the pups are starving as a result.

Keith Matassa, the executive director of the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, is currently trying to rehabilitate approximately 130 of the emaciated animals. He says the mothers, which normally forage for food for a couple of days at a time, are being forced to travel further and into deeper water, and while they're gone, the pups end up getting stranded, unable to hunt or fish on their own.

"Right now we're getting six-month-old pups in that should weigh between 60 and 70 pounds, and they are coming to us between 15 and 25 pounds, which is actually under their birth weight," he tells As It Happens host Carol Off. "They're little California sea lion pups that look like skeletons."

Matassa says the facility feeds them and tries to bring them back up to the weight they should be, and then tags them and returns them to the sea. So far, his group has managed to return 20 to the wild and they hope to release more soon.