The toxic algae bloom off the Southern California coast that's been killing and sickening so many sea lions and other marine mammals has finally ended. 

"Our demoic acid toxic hostess event is over, for the time being," biologist Dave Bader said. 

Bader, who works for San Pedro's Marine Mammal Care Center, said recent samples of the ocean water do not show signs of the algae that create the toxic domoic acid bloom that has been afflicting sea lions, dolphins, pelicans and even whales over the past three months. 

"It's been rough," Bader said. "We've seen so many animals."

For those three months, Bader and his team have triaged and treated thousands of animals that were seizing, dying or dead on beaches from Ventura to Orange County.

Rescue centers shared the burden and pain during the toxic algae bloom.

"It's not just the volume of animals," Bader said. "The females were pregnant, almost all of them, they all aborted their young ... Also, there were so many dolphins this time around as well, which is also tragic. So to see the volume of animals, the types of animals that are coming in, it was really hard on everybody."   

Typically, the algae blooms begin in June. However, this round of domoic acid spread began much earlier and has the possibility of returning later this year, according to Bader.

"We still have another several months when a bloom of this type could reoccur," he said. 

Bader said humans created this crisis, and can ultimately solve it. 

"We need to do a better job of mitigating against the future effects of climate change, making it not as bad as it could be. That's step number one," he said. "It's a big step that we have to take. The ocean is telling us it's not well, it's not healthy, and we have to take those big steps to solve problems like this."