Toward the end of the film “The Matrix,” Agent Smith describes a revelation to Morpheus that he believes humans are a disease. He argues that mammals adapt to their environment, whereas humans change their environment to suit them, and once resources are depleted, they move on — much like a virus.

This revelation is a bit of an exaggeration and the connotation is clearly negative. However, there is definite truth in the comparison. Humans are incredibly adept at changing the environment to suit their fancy, even at the complete expense of the local animal inhabitants.

This revelation is quite starkly played out on a local level. A group of La Jolla residents is attempting to re-open the Children’s Pool, where anywhere between 50 to 200 seals currently reside, for human swimming. A taskforce has been established to research the consequences of human swimming and subsequent seal displacement at the Pool.

As its name implies, the Children’s Pool was a gift from the state to the children of San Diego in 1931. It has been closed on and off for human use because of the large influx of harbor seals that rest there. Since last year, there has been limited use of the beach by divers and swimmers, but officially the beach remains closed. Swimmers may be cited and fined up to $1,000 should they violate that policy.

Why the people of La Jolla even care about yet another swimming area is baffling, especially at the expense of one of the few government-protected seal habitations in San Diego.

Legally, argues attorney Paul Kennerson, the beach must be returned to human use, because of the 1931 precedent. This precedent, however, should not trump the fact that the seals are protected by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits interference with the natural behavior of marine mammals. An 80-year-old state gift should not be considered more valid than the protection of an endangered species, especially given the human use of so many San Diego beaches.

Swimmers argue that humans and seals can easily share the beach. However, most biologists and naturalists agree that this will result in the harassment of the seals, which promotes displacement. In fact, anyone who visits the beach at night to watch the seals will routinely see teenage boys trying to impress their girlfriends by harassing the seals.

Swimmers also may be at risk. While generally docile, the seals do become defensive at times, especially during mating and birthing seasons. The seals are slow on land, but should someone provoke them while swimming, the seals could inflict a great amount of injury, to the point of drowning the swimmer.

In a perfect display of poetic justice, nine La Jollan protesters decided to swim in the beach to protest the policy during a seal birthing season. Their activity panicked the seals, who stormed into the sea and injured several of the swimmers.

Biologists have come together to ask that human interference be completely removed, as it always affects the seals negatively. Humans are notoriously bad at interacting with species that cannot aptly protect themselves. La Jolla teenagers should be reason enough to close the beach to humans entirely, much less ignorant swimming protesters. Magnify this to opening the beach to the general public, wherein it will begin to look like La Jolla Shores on a hot day, and the seals will surely be forced to leave.

Of course, the abundance of seals on so small a beach has led to ecological problems. There is a dangerous level of bacteria in that area which has been verified as the result of seal feces. However, these problems have nothing to do with human swimming and should further deter humans from trying to open the beach to their own use.

Swimmers argue that the beach may be dredged and cleaned. While that may even be necessary for the seals’ livelihood, it is also very disruptive. Even though the beach is contaminated enough to prohibit human activity anyway, these swimmers wish further disruption of the seal habitat to make it clean for human use.

All this underlies the obvious argument that there is no reason to open another beach for human use. This would be true of any area of California’s disappearing coastline. These proceedings are particularly menacing because the opening of this beach would destroy one of the last few seal preserves.

In the long history of humans determining whether they or local wildlife should have rights to the land, the animals are rarely victorious. It should not be such a difficult task to set aside one small area that is beyond our use.