Northern Sea Lion

Northern Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus)

The Northern Sea Lion also known as the steller sea lion, is a threatened specis of sea lion in the norther Pacific. An inhabitant of like coastal waters and offshore islands, the range all the way from the North Pacific from the the coasts of Japan and Kamchatkato the islands of the Bering Sea and coastal Alaska, and southward to California's Channel Islands. They can be easily spotted on Seal Rocks, near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, and around the Sea Lion Caves on the Oregon Coast. Due to the northern sea lions' significant, unexplained declines in their population over their range in Alaska, they have attracted a considerable amount of attention. Northern sea lions eat a great variety including octopus, squid, crab and fish. Fisherman dislike them as they sometimes eat "commercial fish" and damage their nets in the process. Hunters in British Columbia, in a single year, killed 9,000, cutting the provicial population from 12,000 to 3,000.