LA JOLLA, Calif. -- An animal protection group called Tuesday on the City Council to block the seasonal removal of a rope barrier at the Children's Pool in La Jolla that serves as a boundary between people and seals.

The barrier, which is erected by the city to protect the seals during the pupping season, is scheduled to come down Tuesday.

Bryan Pease, an attorney for the Animal Protection and Rescue League, asked the City Council to enact emergency legislation that would keep the rope barrier up year-round, or at least at night.

He proposed that the rope be put up between sundown and 9 a.m. year-round, and all day during the non-swimming months from September through May.

"As soon as that rope comes down, people are going to swarm onto the beach and drive the seals away," Pease told the council during the portion of the meeting reserved for non-agenda public comment.

Pease said the seals are "most vulnerable" at night, and the rope barrier provides a "nice visual guideline for people to stay back."

The barrier is currently in place from Dec. 15 to May 15 to protect the female harbor seals as they beach themselves to give birth to their pups.

It used to be up all year, but some residents protested that the rope infringed on their right to access the children's pool for recreation.

Environmentalists had argued that the seals were repeatedly harassed by people when the original rope barrier was removed in 2004.

The Children's Pool was created in 1931 through a trust by Ellen Browning Scripps to build a breakwater so children could swim safely.

In the past decade, the beach has been taken over by a colony of harbor seals.