Can you hear that?
How about now?
Those are sea lions.
They're the loudmouth conquerors of the Pacific Ocean.
These chunky sirens are expert divers and fishers.
Hold your breath, and get ready to meet the king of the beach.
Hi I'm Danielle Dufault and you're watching Animalogic.
Today we're hanging out with the sea lion colony.
Earlier this year, we talked about the adorable and stinky fur seals,
and we mentioned that they're actually more closely related to sea lions than to true seals.
I loved the stinky little Aussies so much
that I couldn't pass the opportunity to meet their Canadian family in the North Pacific.
Two of the six species of sea lion can be found here in Canada:
the humongous Steller sea lion and the adorable California sea lion.
The other four species live in the Southern Hemisphere.
Oh my god, these are Steller sea lions.
Our first stop is the local Steller sea lion colonies.
They are the largest of all sea lions.
They're also the only species that breeds here off the coast of British Columbia.
They're pretty hard to miss.
These Steller sea lions are taking turns resting up on the rocks and then
diving down into the kelp forests to look for some fish to eat.
When one gets tired and gets its fill, it'll go and take up some space up on the rocks.
I don't know how they can swim in that crazy swell.
They're absolutely massive and get to that size mostly by eating
fatty fish such as herring and sand lance.
Pollock is also consumed but it's not as nutritious
as it only contains a tenth of the fat herrings have.
In areas where herring stocks are declining, Steller sea lion populations are decreasing.
Young sea lions don't grow quickly enough if they and their moms don't eat enough herring,
which leads to high mortality rates.
This is a problem because they're often surrounded by the most notorious fish thieves in the world,
Bald Eagles.
Not a good look, Freedom bird.
We just saw a sea lion punch a gull in the face and then a bald eagle showed up and
stole the sea lion's fish and flew off with it, gulls in hot pursuit.
I think he got away.
Good job, I guess.
A diet of fatty fish doesn't make these guys weak.
They can be ferocious.
Their skulls are surprisingly similar to a brown bear's skull.
Sea grizzlies would have been a more appropriate name.
The Steller sea lions are extremely sexually dimorphic.
The females grow to only four to five hundred kilos,
but the males can grow all the way to twelve hundred kilos, just massive.
Males also don a mane once they reach sexual maturity.
This is where their name comes from.
Catching fish in the ocean is no easy task,
but sea lions have a number of adaptations that make it a little bit easier.
The main one is their breathing.
When people dive, water pressure forces gases in our lungs, such as nitrogen, into our blood.
When we surface and decompress, they expand and can cause tissue damage
Sea lions prevent decompression sickness by exhaling before they dive
and reducing the amount of gases that can go into their blood through their lungs.
They can also slow down their metabolism to reduce oxygen requirements.
After fattening up in the winter, sea lions meet in rookeries.
The males fight for prime real estate, which attracts females.
For sea lions it's all about three things: location, location, location.
Females show up pregnant, and give birth soon after arriving.
Now these noisy lads behind me are the Steller sea lions.
There's two species of sea lions that live around here.
But one way that you can distinguish them is that these ones are a little bit bigger,
a little bit lighter, and these guys roar and grunt, just like you can hear right now.
The other species is the California sea lion, and those ones you're more likely to hear barking.
Absolutely massive lads.
The reason males make these nursing areas for females
is because they can mate soon after giving birth.
They're also able to delay implantation,
so that they can time their next birth to the following spring.
Sometimes the pups will nurse for over a year, and in some rare cases,
a two-year-old female pup will give birth while still being nursed by her mother.
This is extremely rare among mammals.
The sea lions are putting on such a show, and the ones in the water
are much smaller, telling me that those are all the females.
Now, the females are doing flips in the water.
As you can imagine, a rock that's home to dozens
of sea lions is not necessarily the best place to have a picnic.
Gotta admit, they kind of smell like they sound.
Yeah, oh, some of them are kind of whistling.
That's kind of cool.
In some cases, they might even share their rocks with harbour seals,
but you can easily tell them apart because seals don't have the sea lion's shrek-like ears.
Also, the seals' hind legs point backwards so when
they're on land they have to drag themselves to move.
Sea lion's legs point to the sides, so they're able to walk a little better.
This is especially helpful when comparing them with a smaller California sea lion.
Behind me we've got some California sea lions.
They can be as long as a Steller sea lion, but are much leaner,
with males weighing only about 300 kilograms.
Like their bigger cousins, females are a third of the male size.
I love the way that these these sea lions are so casually lounging.
Paint me like one of your sea lions.
These sea good boys don't breed in British Columbia,
but males come up here after the breeding season to spend the winter.
The world's population of California sea lions is about three hundred thousand,
but only about three thousand make it up here to Vancouver and stick around.
Females tend to stay in warmer Californian waters with their pups.
Males can get used to the colder water but have to find ways to keep themselves warm.
Got some California sea lions just out front here.
They're just swimming along, taking some dives out in the distance.
Sometimes you can see them lift a flipper while staying under water.
It's called finning, and it's usually for regulating their body temperature a little bit.
You can usually hear them, and smell them before you can see them.
California sea lions are loud.
You know that stereotypical seal noise?
It's actually a sea lion bark, and given that they're always hanging out with their squad,
their cacophony can be heard from far, far away.
Sea lions are social leaders and often play with their favourite dinner guests, whales.
This humpback has been fluking and finning alongside these sea lions for about half an hour.
We're not sure why they do it, but it sure looks like they're having fun.
Please let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes every week.
Thanks for watching and see ya.