“The number of human visitors to San Francisco may not have returned to pre-pandemic levels. COVID-19but sea lions are flocking to the city in record numbers,” To have fun The New York Times.
At the very end of May, more than two thousand were counted at Pier 39, a pier located near the San Francisco ferry terminal, i.e. “absolute record”.
It is “600 more than the previous record of 1,400 sea lions set in the early 1990s,” points out in the diary columns of Sheila Chandor, who has worked in the harbor master’s office at Pier 39 since 1985.
Adam Ratner, a sea lion specialist at the Sausalito Marine Mammal Center, for his part, emphasizes that his organization has noted “a record 1701 sea lions in 2009”, but that the current overcrowding of pier 39 “truly outstanding”.
Herds of sea lions and tourists
These sea lions were first attracted by the presence of a “a huge shoal of anchovies not far from the Golden Gate Bridge”, the famous red bridge in San Francisco.
Although it is not clear what is currently keeping them in the city’s waters, these sea lions have been attracted in turn “herds of tourists and locals”, notes the paper.
While researchers believe the population of adult sea lions is generally healthy, “Nevertheless, they are concerned about premature births in these marine mammals, which they believe are the result of climate change and rising ocean temperatures,” emphasizes The New York Times.
Warmer water causes fish to move away from sea lion breeding grounds, “which forces pregnant sea lions to swim farther to get closer to their food source, while males move much farther, sometimes as far as Alaska, to find food.”