Sea Lion Research on the Hillside South of Campus?
Ecological Field Station Was a Center for Animal Communication Research
By the mid-1980s, Cal-State professor Ron Schusterman had gained national notoriety for his research into animal communication. Featured on a PBS Nova program dealing with communications between humans and dolphins, orangutans, and chimpanzees, Schusterman’s work focused primarily on sea lions. The School of Science built an ecological field station on the dry hillside just south of campus, presumably for its proximity to faculty and student researchers. A water tank was erected, which eventually housed Rocky, the prime test subject during the several years the station was in use. The sea lion communication research program was funded by a grant from the Office of Naval Research. After the program ended, the station fell into disuse, and was eventually bulldozed.
Rocky the sea lion was the principal resident at CSUEB’s ecological field station during the 1980s. By 1984, the 10-year-old female had learned numerous hand signals for objects, actions, and modifiers, and had learned to respond to 270 of these combinations of these in sentences of 2-4 words.