More than 3,000 starving sea lion pups have washed up on California’s beaches since January—easily 15 times more than in a normal year.

“It’s unprecedented,” says Sarah Wilkin, national marine mammal stranding and emergency response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And those are the lucky pups. The situation on California’s Channel Islands, where more than 90 percent of the U.S. sea lion population congregates to breed and nurse young, is even worse than in other parts of the state.

The influx of weak, sickly pups—3,110 as of May 20—has overwhelmed rehabilitation centers for the third year in a row. From San Diego to north of San Francisco, rescuers are busy retrieving pups (sometimes from city streets