Environment

Sea Lions on San Francisco's Pier 39 Disappear

by Amy Judd | December 29, 2009 at 05:23 pm

2814 views | 32 Recommendations | 4 comments

The sea lions that have taken up residence on San Francisco's Pier 39 for the last 20 years have disappeared and no one knows if they are coming back.

The sea lions have been a famous tourist attraction in San Francisco, but in the last week of november they left the area and have not been seen since.

“We have no idea where they moved on to or why,” said Shelbi Stoudt, who manages a team that helps stranded animals in the San Francisco Bay from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California.

Their disappearance is as strange as their appearance about 20 years ago when they just showed up and starting taking over Pier 39 as their own. No one seems to know why their behaviour changed or why it may have changed again. No one is worried at this time however. The sea lions are a migratory animal so maybe it was just time for them to move on.

However, many usually stick around on Pier 39 during the winter before they migrate south for the summer and this year alone there were over a thousand of the animals counted at the spot.

Many fisherman are not too unhappy about their disappearance though as they often steal fish from the local fisherman.

There doesn't seem to have been an influx of sea lions at Seal Rocks, so conservationists don't think that the animals have gone there.

Who knows when or if they will come back.

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Uwe Paschen

at 00:34 on December 30th, 2009

Wild animals have a heighten sense of danger and maybe they have good reasons for their disappearance.

In the Tsunami of 2005 all animals fled to safety long before the tsunami hit. Humans where not even aware of the danger other then some Native remote tribes that followed the Animals lead.

Off course it could be a great number of other reasons, including Human interference's.

Stephen B (not verified)

at 19:28 on December 30th, 2009

Well, at about 11:00am on 12/30 there was a 5.9 Earthquake in the Southern California desert. Maybe the sea lions sensed that the San Andreas is just about to deliver the fabeled BIG ONE soon. One more odd thing, at nearly exactly the same time as that quake, I was writing an email to a friend and made a reference to the San Andreas fault near San Bernadino. Maybe I have something in common with the sea lions.....?

Fred2 (not verified)

at 02:21 on January 1st, 2010

It is a great mystery!thedailybite.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/sea-lions-earthquakes-blue-moons-and-perigee-tides/

Nueggland (not verified)

at 21:30 on January 10th, 2010

I just have to say that as soon as I first heard this report, I told my children that there was going to be an earthquake. I agree that animals know these things farther in advance than humans seem to. And, here we are on January 10th, 2010, the day after another earthquake hits in the SF bay area. I am telling you, we need to talk a walk in the woods more often so we can learn a thing or to from nature. They, too, have something to say about this world we live in.