Volunteers from the Vancouver Aquarium's marine are stepping up to help hundreds of starving and sick sea lion pups washing up on the shores of California.

In the past three months, more than 1,800 emaciated pups have been found, putting pressure on local rescue centres.

But the Aquarium is lending some of its expertise from the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre to an area that is in dire need of help.

“I think it’s something that everybody is passionate about and we all really want to help out,” said Sion Cahoon, a veterinary technologist at the aquarium. “I also think it’s important for all our programs and rescue centres and staff to band together and deal with this problem as a group. We’re all in this together.”

Cahoon travelled to Monterey, Calif. two-and-a-half-weeks ago as the first of 10 highly skilled Vancouver experts rotating through two different rescue centres through the end of April.

She said the centres need all the help they can get.

“To be quite honest, the staff and the volunteers that run these centres are so overwhelmed,” she said. “Some of them are working 12 to 15 hours days and they’re just there all the time, and there’s not really and end in sight at this point.”

Experts believe a shift in water temperature caused by weak northern winds is partly to blame for the phenomenon, as food sources are pushed further away, taking mothers away from their pups for longer.

Caring for the animals includes rehydrating them, providing nourishment as well as trying to clear up any infections the weak pups may have acquired.

But Cahoon said the grueling work is worth it to witness the payoff.

“That was really cool, to sort of see the fruits of everybody’s labours, and we released six sea lions back into the ocean so that was really awesome,” she said.

She said Vancouver Aquarium volunteers are travelling on their own time and paying their own way to California.

According to scientists, sea lion pups washing up on shore each spring is not unusual in the state, but so far the number of stranded pups is five times what it was in 2013, making it the worst season in recent memory.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Penny Daflos