Conservation Heroine: Amber Becerra of Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles
We had the honor of chatting with one of our personal heroes and mentors, Amber Becerra, the most recent President and CEO of Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles. MMCC’s mission is to inspire ocean conservation through marine animal rehabilitation, education, and research. As the the only 24/7/365 safe haven for these animals throughout all 70 miles of coastline in Los Angeles County, the MMCC team has treated over 8,000+ animals. Regular patients include California sea lions, harbor seals, elephant seals, northern fur seals, and Guadalupe fur seals and many of them come into the hospital due to parasites, littering, fishing line entanglement, and malnourishment. Amber Becerra injected new life to the organization and managed to pull the facility out of a potentially devastating financial ditch, ensuring that Los Angeles’ pinnipeds will always have a home to recover in. Amber did so by bringing in her sunny personality to a slew of new initiatives and media programs, as well has rolled up her sleeves to find new support, catapulting MMCC to the forefront of marine mammal conservation. In honor of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week 2022 coming to a close, what better time to highlight the unlikely partnership between MMCC and Shark Allies!
SC: Where do we even begin, you have had countless twists and turns in your career to set you up for your most recent position at Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles. What about your past as an attorney, house flipper or big business consultant has helped you in running a successful animal hospital and rehab facility?
AB: Surprisingly, a lot! I studied environmental law at Berkeley Law but never considered that I might wind up working as a professional in this field. It was more of a passion project and a hobby for me - save the world in all my free time, right?! I guess I had always felt that I needed to suffer in order to be successful, that I needed to in some way dislike what I was doing in order to make a living. Falling into this position at MMCC (we will get to that later) really changed my perspective on that. We should all be doing what we love AND finding a way to make a living at it. The house flipping and practicing law as a business reorganization attorney were all relevant to what I ended up doing at MMCC- I’m a fixer upper! I see broken, falling apart things and I reorganize them, restore what’s beautiful about them and rebuild what’s missing. Ironically this really ties into the work MMCC does too - we rescue and “fix up” injured animals and our oceans.
SC: This is your first ocean conservation role, but your love and respect of animals runs deep. Where did this passion come from?
AB: My first love was a starving stray puppy I named “Lucky” who showed up on the front porch of my childhood home when I was 5. Ever since then, injured or lost animals would have a way of finding me wherever I went. What seemed like a coincidence would later become my life path. While studying law at Berkeley, I became an animal rights and environmental activist. I went vegetarian for the animals. I was a Board Member for the Ecology Law Quarterly and Programs Director of the Environmental Law group and through that work I not only fell in love with nature and it’s creatures but also felt this deep need to help and protect them. My passion for animals extends beyond the professional into my home “sanctuary” in Palos Verdes where we have 11 animals including a rescue pig named Nirvana and a rescue ball python named Bowie. When I’m not busy trying to save the world I'm out there enjoying it - traveling, scuba diving, snowboarding, and meditating my way around the globe. I really do believe in the mantra that we protect what we love. So I work hard to keep that love alive and share it with others because otherwise we will get bogged down in the suffering and lose hope.
SC: MMCC is the largest in-take center for Los Angeles County, you see everything from CA Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Northern Elephant Seals, even Guadalupe Fur Seals from time to time. What are the largest threats Pinnipeds are facing, and how does MMCC help to rehabilitate and eventually release patients?
AB: One of the biggest issues being talked about a lot right now, and I'm finding out people don't have a ton of knowledge on is actually ocean trash and plastics in our ocean. The consumption and creation of single use plastics is a huge problem. Then there is other ocean pollution.
Fishing lines and nets are a big problem for us specifically. We see those animals actually coming into the center with injuries. Ocean pollution, in particular, is a growing problem and it's something that I don't think people are aware of. Actually, people think that you buy these single-use plastics and you put them into the recycle bin and it's okay, this is an eco-friendly practice, but actually, only 9% of what you're recycling actually ever gets recycled and a lot of it ends up in our oceans strangling and suffocating marine life.
The majority of our work at MMCC though is with young pinniped pups separated too early from their mothers. This can happen for a variety of different reasons, some human-caused and other environmental factors. We teach these animals how to eat and hunt for fish and release them back into the wild when they are healthy and ready.
SC: To someone in the middle of the country, as well as a San Pedro local, what are the most effective ways the public can help your mission?
AB: Our overall mission revolves around ocean conservation. And the best way to do that is to educate yourself through nonprofits like ours and Shark Allies and spread awareness to others. The more that saving our oceans becomes dinner table conversation and works its way into every aspect of our lives from sustainable shopping and sourcing to living in a way that respects wildlife and the environment - the closer we get to actually changing our world. This cannot be a hobby. We need more people to commit their lives or at least a substantial portion of it to changing the world.
SC: You accomplished the unthinkable, pulled the facility out of financial crisis in 2019, by cutting the budget and raising the needed amount. Needless to say, this was no easy feat. How did you stay positive to reach your goal? Any advice for struggling grassroots organizations that are still accomplishing important work?
AB: I dove right into pulling this organization out of a financial crisis when I joined the Board. Me and a team of volunteers set a goal of raising $1 million in six months just to ensure the center wouldn’t have to close. Within that time, the organization went from the brink of shutting its doors to raising roughly $1.4 million. We had several different, big donors that stepped up. But honestly the majority of the funds were raised just through a swell of community support. I’ve tried to reverse engineer my success many times. I really don’t have a clear answer on “this is how you do it” because it’s multifaceted depending on the organization. I think my best advice is to just ask for help - and then know how to take it when it’s offered.
SC: One things we love about you is seeing you on MMCC’s social channels, discussing ocean conservation with all types of individuals. You have hosted celebrities, politicians, news stations, influencers and fellow organizations in the facility. MMCC has also launch an awesome speaker series, Beneath the Surface. What do you see as the benefit of collaborating with a broader community?
AB: I have really loved taking MMCC from a hidden gem to a global audience. Our celebrity ambassadors and our community involvement is what propelled that though. By collaborating with others in this space that knew our organization, we were able to broaden our reach slowly but surely. I have an amazing marketing director who has been along my side from the start and we have increased our social media following by 90%! There is so much opportunity out there in the digital space. Finding the right people to work with and being a unique voice - aka don’t be afraid to dress up like a mermaid every once in awhile (yes, seriously) - is how you can make your mark and elevate your brand/awareness about your organization.
SC: Shark Allies has had the pleasure of joining you and MMCC for a Great White/Sea Lion discussion. Some might assume your viewpoint on Pinniped predators, but why did you feel it was important to partner with a shark organization?
AB: This was one of my favorite collabs to date with another organization. I’m a shark lover. Like many of the people reading this - I’m the person getting in the water looking for sharks to hang out with not because I’m afraid of them. And yet at the same time I’ve seen firsthand the severe damage these mighty animals can do to their prey. But two things stand out to me as so important here and this is my motivation for pushing sharks (and other non-charismatic species) on people who may be afraid of them. One, apex predators are critical to a healthy ocean ecosystem. If you get rid of sharks - you end up with far more sick and injured seals and seal lions than before. Sharks consuming the sicker weaker prey actually HELPS the food chain stay in balance and the species evolve to be better faster stronger. Secondly, people are inherently selfish. They love cute cuddly little things because they can imagine kissing or cuddling up to them and it makes them feel good. We don’t innately care about things that don’t make us feel good. But sharks need our help too. Just because something doesn’t make you feel good - doesn’t mean it’s life isn’t worth saving and protecting. So that’s what I’m here to remind people of- because it’s easy for me to do that when I think creatures like sharks and snakes are cute and cuddly haha!
SC: What has been the biggest challenge in running MMCC and what has been the biggest reward?
AB: The biggest challenge was that wildlife conservation work can be a very thankless and exhausting job. - at all levels. You really have to find it in yourself to know that you’re doing great work and to be proud of yourself. The pay isn’t going to be great, hours are long, lots of struggles for every dollar that comes in the door - but at the end of the day when you get to open the gate and see a rehabilitated seal flop its way back to the ocean - that’s all the thanks you really need.
SC: Do you have any advice for aspiring conservationists? Where is a good place to start?
AB: What is giving me hope right now is that people seem to be activated and engaged. Even though things are super challenging right now and people are nervous and scared and don't know what the future holds- I think that the flip side of that is that it really has caused people to become more actively involved in what that’s going to look like. Whether that's paying closer attention to politics or getting involved with different causes. Being open to receiving information about what it is that's really going on, that's been elevated really significantly during these times. I'm hopeful that the end result of that is that it will continue. People will be inspired to really make a change and make a difference and take action because it gets really easy for us to just get stuck in that rat race, just doing the day to day, our jobs and families and taking care of business and it's not often that we're forced to step outside of our comfort zone and look around us at what's going on in the world.
This catastrophe we've all been living through, it really does make you stop. It makes you question what your core values are. It makes you question what other people's values are and you want to align yourself with people that are on the same mission as you. People that maybe otherwise, we're just kind of going through the motions of life before are now being inspired and activated to make a big difference and to see what they can do to affect change. I think that that will in the long run actually be a positive thing for our planet. If I had one piece of advice to give to an aspiring conservationist it would be - make saving the world your day job, not your hobby.
SC: What are your hopes for the future of MMCC?
AB: Actually the most exciting thing happening for MMCC is that I’m moving back into my volunteer role on the Board of Directors and we are hiring a new CEO! This is an exciting time because like I said previously, I’m a fixer upper and if it ain’t broke, I’m looking for a new thing to fix! We’ve reached a point of stability now that I can pass the reigns to the next person for growth and expansion. And I’m ready for this next chapter in my wildlife conservation career as well. I formed an alliance with likeminded conservation organizations (including Shark Allies) that is going to become its own nonprofit- called the Wildlife Protection Alliance. This is an organization dedicated to creating a world where humans and animals peacefully and ethically coexist. Follow us @respectthewildlife. I want to be able to help even more animals and on a global scale. I’m so happy that MMCC led me down this incredible path and I hope I can continue doing big things in this space and be the “conservation heroine” the world needs me to be.
SC: Anything you’d like to leave readers with?
AB: We have this amazing collaboration with Shark Allies that will be hitting shelves this Fall! It’s a wildlife photography book called Coastal California: The Wildlife. I came up with the idea to create this book a few months ago and I almost cannot believe that as I’m doing this interview it is hitting the presses! A dream that has become a reality and in record time! The book captures the essence of California from its stunning ocean landscapes and breathtaking wilderness, to its unusual variety of flora and fauna unique to the geography and climate of our dynamic state. The highlight of this book is the many wildlife organizations whose incredible conservation work is featured - including MMCC and Shark Allies. The majority of the proceeds from each book will go to support these organizations and their critical work in wildlife conservation. Check it out and order your copy today at www.pvpublications.com/coastal-california.
