They've been regular visitors to San Francisco's Pier 39 for 35 years, and this year's turnout is a pretty stellar one. More than 1,000 sea lions have congregated on docks along the pier. While that's shy of the record 1,700 or so that some years have seen, it's said to be the largest number to mass there in 15 years. The Guardian reports the "mounds of floppy, delightfully ungraceful marine mammals" were attracted by a large school of anchovies in the bay.
SFGate reports it all started thanks to one "plucky male sea lion" that settled on a dock by Pier 39 in 1989 and was soon joined by hundreds more. The numbers have fluctuated over the years, even hitting zero for periods in 2009 and 2014. The current numbers could potentially swell, notes SFist, which reports the dock usually sees the most sea lions over the September-to-November period.
As for those present now, UC Santa Cruz ecology professor Dan Costa tells the Guardian the males are in many cases headed south to the Channel Islands to mate. "These are wandering, nomadic critters who tend to work their way north and work their way south throughout the year," Costa said. (You can take a look at the scene for yourself via Pier 39's livestream.)
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