Pups are born mid May to mid June with breeding taking place 10 to 14 days after the birth of the pups. During breeding season the males stake out a territory and up to 15 females. Their coats or pelage are light tan to reddish brown in color. The males have a bulky build with a very thick neck, which resembles a lion’s mane, hence, the name sea lion. They communicate by deep growls and leave the barking to the Californians. Pups weigh in at 20kg at birth and nurse for a year. Females are somewhat smaller at 180-230kg and 2.4m long. They are the largest member of the Otariidae family with the males or bulls weighing in at 450-1000 kg reaching 3m in length. ![]() STELLER’S SEA LIONS are named after George Wilhelm Steller a naturalist who studied them in 1798 off the Russian Coast in the Bering Sea. GROWLS has had calls about some unfortunate sea lion with netting wrapped around their heads or bodies cutting deep in to their skin. Fishing nets trap, entangle and drown sea lions as they slip in to feed on the banquet of fish caught in the nets. So I decided to put a pano I shot yesterday (18th) out tonight.Transient killer whales are feared by sea lions as they prey on both species. The cloud/rain always put the Kibosh on my shoots! You can see Tranquil Inlet in the background. These guys are sun worshipers,heat Vampires or other wise known as BIG energy soaker uppers!Īll the dark ones are Californian Sea Lion’s,while the blonde boys are the BIG Steller’s! I think this rock only had Cali’s. Cannery right now is very dark and cold! There is a constant cold mist above the water coming down from Kennedy lake! Later when the sun gets higher in the sky,they will start to hang around in Cannery. The only real estate at the moment in the sun are these two rocky islets. If there is no sun,you won’t find them there. Then the sun can go further into Cannery bay. They are waiting for the earth’s poles to head back to the south. They are on them right now because they are waiting. I should say that there are two rocks that they use but I call them both “Lion Rock”. It looks like thats exactly what happened here to”Lippy” but he was lucky enough to escape with only face wounding. Its designed to stop Lion attacks but Lions are always trying to get at those tasty fish! Sometimes a Lion will push the pred net in quickly to get at the salmon but get snagged. It engulfs the entire site and is about 10 feet away from the inside fish nets. Surrounding the fish farm site is another much larger net called a “Predator Net”(pred net). When they bring up perfectly healthy salmon with no guts you know there was a predator attack and it was a Lion. The salmon than sinks to the bottom of the pen net.ĭIvers go into each pen every three days or so to see If there are any dead salmon. Of course they cannot pull the much larger fish through the net squares,so they suck the internal organs of the fish right through the net holes. ![]() The Lions charge the salmon nets hoping to grab a unsuspecting salmon! They push against the heavy nets trying to corral a bunch of salmon. They breath air like you and I and If they become entangled in the netting they can drown. I’ve seen these guys get stuck in those nets before. Than I thought of a Fish farms predator net! ![]() Propellar wounds have symmetry and repeat in pattern. I wondered why? At first I thought of a boats prop but decided that wasn’t the reason. You can clearly see how there is a tear in the upper lip. I called him “Lippy” because his left lower lip is damaged. This fellow and I spent some time together. Usually they hang out in groups,sunning away with their noses pointing to the sky. The Californians will be down lower close to the waters edge while the big Stellar boys rest further up.įor some strange reason this fellow was all by himself. Stellar’s always like to be King of the hill on any rocky haul outs. Cali’s are generally darker than the Stellar’s and of course smaller. Cali’s are around 1/2 ton while their bigger cousins the Stellar’s are twice as large at 1 ton. There are two types of Sea Lions we get here,Californians and Stellar’s. Tranquil’s valley can be seen in the background. The spot is Rankin rocks which is east of Tofino about 5 miles or so down Tofino inlet. I took these originally on 2016 October 10. Things have been a tad wet over our way,so I thought I’d repost some shots.
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