Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 8 - February 25, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................3
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals.......................... 2,5,6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
69˚/49˚
Saturday
Sunny
67˚/50˚
Sunday
Sunny
69˚/49˚
Lawndale Tribune
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Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Faithful Central Bible Church
Helps South Bay Fight COVID
Last Sunday, Faithful Central Bible Church continued their mission to assist with ending this pandemic. They hosted a vaccine clinic for the community. Don’t worry if you missed this one there’s another in
the near future. Thank you to all volunteers, healthcare workers, and Governor Gavin Newsom for all your support. Photo courtesy Faithful Central Bible Church.
Peter Wallerstein Rescues
Animals on South Bay Beaches
By Kiersten Vannest
Every now and then, more often than you’d
think, a marine mammal washes up ashore a
Los Angeles beach, injured or otherwise in need
of help. Occasionally, it comes from domoic
acid, a neurotoxin found in algae that causes
disorientation and seizures. Other times, these
animals find themselves at the mercy of us,
entangled in a gill net, for example, and unable
to come up for air. Any time one of these
unfortunate animals has reached L.A. waters,
Peter Wallerstein has been there to help.
Originally from Norwalk, Connecticut,
Wallerstein started out working with the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society. Sea Shepherd
is a direct action activist group whose mission
is to stop poachers and habitat destruction by
“exposing, intercepting, and opposing” illegal
operations that damage sea life. During his
time with the organization, Wallerstein traveled
all over the world, rescuing whales and other
marine life. Eventually, he was appointed the
position of Pacific Director.
While working with the Sea Shepherd Society,
confronting whaling boats and halting harmful
marine practices, Peter realized that some
of this was happening in our own backyard.
“I thought we could do better than that.
Whales were dying… and I just didn’t think
that was acceptable for being in L.A.,” says
Wallerstein. He bought a boat and some knives
and told everyone that he was going to go free
whales getting caught in fishing nets.
His first call was to Palos Verdes. A whale and
her baby were entangled in a net just off shore,
only able to come up for a very short breath
and then dragged back down to the bottom
of the ocean. They were drowning. They cut
the mother free first, and she went down and
bolstered her baby up to the surface about
a dozen times for air as they tried to cut
it free. After successfully freeing the pair,
Wallerstein decided to focus his efforts on
his local beaches.
At the time, the government did not agree
with Wallerstein’s approach. They had a different
method of dealing with stranded or trapped
animals, which wasn’t always safest for the
animals or the environment. Wallerstein kept
rescuing, day after day, year after year, until
he garnered such respect that government officials
went from adversaries to collaborators.
In 1985, Wallerstein founded his organization,
Marine Animal Rescue (formerly called
Whale Rescue Team). For about twenty-five
years, Peter alone established a twenty-four-hour
hotline and responded to calls at all times of
day, rescuing two hundred pound animals all
by himself. He devised and created machinery
and systems to pick up and transport large
animals in under fifteen minutes.
When he gets a call from someone who sees
an animal on the beach, Wallerstein responds
immediately. He approaches the animal with a
hoop net and loops it around the animal’s head.
“That’s the hardest part,” he says, explaining
that a sea lion has a bite that is ten times harder
than a pit bull. From there, he gets them onto
a net, which is tied through a cage to a winch
on his truck. The winch pulls the net into the
cage, where he is able to close the doors and
safely transport the animal to a rehabilitation
center for later release.
Since the start of his local work, Peter has
rescued over six thousand five hundred sea
animals off the coast of L.A. County, from
whales to sea lions to turtles to fur seals. In
El Segundo, he says he often sees starved pups
and occasionally beached animals looking to get
out of the water. Although some of his missions
are called due to natural circumstances, others
are created by human intervention.
Gill nets were banned in California waters
See Peter Wallerstein, page 5
South Bay’s Adam Marcus
Follows His Passion of Film
By Duane Plank
El Segundo resident Adam Marcus is not
only an accomplished silver screenwriter,
director, and producer, but like a select
few in the industry, has his own Wikipedia
page! OK, there may be more than a selectfew
Hollywood types with their own Wiki
page, but you get the idea.
Marcus grew up on the East Coast, splitting
time between New York’s Manhattan
borough and the tony, friendly confines of
Westport, Connecticut. Marcus decided he
wanted to pursue his passion for a career
in the movie-making industry after being
enthralled by viewing the original Star Wars
extravaganza in 1977. He was nine-yearsold
at the time.
Marcus said that spending much of his
formative years in the artistic breeding
ground of Westport definitely played a big
part in his chosen career path. The iconic
actor Paul Newman was a Westport resident
and lived down the street from Marcus, who
said he (Marcus, not Newman) used to sing
at foodie Martha Stewart’s Christmas parties.
Marcus participated in “play readings”
with academy-award-winning actress Sandy
Dennis...and iconic playwright Neil Simon
was a townie back in the day.
“Westport was a remarkable place to
grow up in,” Marcus said. Even Hollywood
favored the Westport environs; the town was
the landing spot for Lucy and Desi after
See Adam Marcus, page 4