New ABC Show Features Local SeaWorld Rescues

Some SeaWorld San Diego rescue stories will be in the national spotlight when Sea Rescue, a new half-hour weekly television series premieres next month, park officials announced Friday.

Sea Rescue will showcase marine animals who were rescued, rehabilitated then returned to the wild. The show will highlight rescues from SeaWorld's San Diego and Orlando parks, including past rescues like J.J., the baby gray whale who was nursed back to health after she was found beached in 1997, as well as more recent rescues, according to a park spokeswoman.

SeaWorld has visited La Jolla numerous times this year, including to free  earlier this month and this week.

“SeaWorld has rescued 20,000 animals over the past 40 years, and we are thrilled to bring viewers inside our most extraordinary and heartfelt stories of rescue, rehabilitation and return,'' said Jim Atchison, CEO and president of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.

“Our wildlife rescue teams are on call 365 days a year and every day is a new adventure, whether airlifting a manatee by helicopter out of the Everglades, replicating mother's milk for an orphaned gray whale, or creating a back brace for a stranded pilot whale with scoliosis.”

Locally, SeaWorld said it assists 200 distressed animals each year. So far for 2012, it has provided care for 24 marine mammals consisting of 20 California sea lions, two harbor seals and two elephant seals, according to a spokeswoman.

The TV program, which will be launched through a partnership between Litton Entertainment and SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, is scheduled to be broadcast on Saturday mornings starting April 7 during a three-hour block of six series, Litton's Weekend Adventure, that airs on 95 percent of the country's ABC affiliates. The series will be hosted by environmental journalist and Good Morning America weather anchor Sam Champion.

–City News Service contributed to this report.