The variety of guests to San Francisco has not rebounded to its prepandemic degree — not amongst people, anyway. Sea lions, however, are swimming to the town in larger numbers than ever recorded.
This week, sea lion counters — sure, they exist — tallied 2,000 of the whiskered, blubbery creatures within the water alongside Pier 39 on the town’s northern edge. That’s 600 greater than the earlier report of 1,400 set within the early Nineties, based on Sheila Chandor, who has been the harbor grasp at Pier 39 since 1985.
“They’re not shopping for the doom loop!” Ms. Chandor mentioned with fun, referring to the idea circulated by detractors that San Francisco is on the verge of break. “We’ve been actually overrun.”
Adam Ratner, a sea lion knowledgeable on the Marine Mammal Heart throughout the Golden Gate Bridge in Sausalito, described the surge as “actually exceptional.” He mentioned his group tallied a report of 1,701 sea lions in 2009.
“Each dock is full,” he mentioned. “It’s fairly the sight, fairly the sound and fairly the scent.”
The animals had been initially drawn to a big college of anchovies simply outdoors the Golden Gate Bridge, although it isn’t clear what has stored them round, Ms. Chandor mentioned. The ocean lions, in flip, have attracted flocks of vacationers and locals alike.
When the onlookers arrive, they’re greeted with the deafening sound of two,000 heavyweights grunting, growling, loud night breathing, splashing and chanting, “Arf, arf, arf!” — all of which makes for an unforgettable metropolis soundtrack.
Pier 39 is without doubt one of the hottest vacationer spots in San Francisco, located close to one finish of Fisherman’s Wharf with a carousel, T-shirt outlets and eating places well-known for his or her sourdough bowls of clam chowder. In a stroke of genius, Pier 39 officers put in wood floats greater than three many years in the past to function a relaxation cease for curious sea lions.
However there merely will not be sufficient area today. There are far too many sea lions to suit on the floats, and on a latest afternoon the marine mammals repeatedly piled on prime of one another and pushed one another off.
Others have taken to lounging on docks farther away, one in every of which has already begun to sink underneath the burden of the 800-pound behemoths. Ms. Chandor mentioned her group needed to flip off the recent water provide to a dock as a result of the lumbering sea lions broken the taps and despatched the water gushing.
Julian De La Cruz, 36, rode the ferry from his residence in Vallejo, Calif., simply to take a look at the bountiful beasts.
“I like them,” he mentioned, displaying his child and toddler the ocean lions for the primary time. “They’re a part of San Francisco, a part of California. Folks journey from all around the world to see these guys.”
Erica Schmierer, 31, lives just some miles away within the Castro District of San Francisco, however had by no means ventured to Pier 39 till this week, when she was internet hosting an out-of-town buddy. Locals usually think about the pier a vacationer lure.
“I at all times thought this was only a carousel and procuring,” she mentioned. “I didn’t know there have been 2,000 sea lions in my yard.”
As San Francisco struggles to get well from the pandemic, which battered its tourism trade and hollowed out its downtown, the ocean lions have been a giant plus. It mirrors the ocean lions’ arrival in early 1990, a couple of months after a devastating earthquake in 1989 that equally introduced tourism to a halt.
The primary sea lions threw themselves on the docks again then, inflicting harm and angering boat house owners who couldn’t attain their vessels, recalled Ms. Chandor, the harbor grasp. So the Pier 39 workers determined to construct the wooden floats, and an overlook for gawking vacationers. The animals have been an everyday presence in various numbers ever since.
There are at present 250,000 sea lions off the coast of California, and most of them breed within the Channel Islands close to Los Angeles. Each spring, the females keep there to have their pups whereas the males swim off looking for meals, some touring as far north as Alaska.
This yr, extra males than ever have discovered a refueling station at Pier 39, however the moms and infants down south have suffered. Researchers have reported seeing a whole bunch of useless sea lion pups wash ashore, apparently born too early to outlive.
Researchers think about the present inhabitants of sea lions to be wholesome general, however they’re finding out the pups’ untimely births, which they imagine are the results of local weather change and the rising temperature of the ocean, mentioned Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hotter water has led fish to swim farther from the ocean lions’ breeding grounds, which has pressured pregnant sea lions to swim farther to achieve them and hold their pups wholesome.
The dads, although, appear to be doing simply wonderful. Perhaps too effectively, Ms. Chandor mentioned.
She mentioned the males will most likely go away in a few weeks to swim again down south, and she or he hopes the numbers is not going to enhance within the meantime. The pier, she mentioned, has reached its sea lion capability.
“All people loves a feel-good animal story,” she mentioned. “However it’ll actually go from chic to ridiculous in a really brief time.”
