Wildlife on the Brink: Steller Sea Lion

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Eumetopias jubatus

STATUS: Endangered/Threatened (different river populations listed separately)

HABITAT: Marine; favors remote off-shore islands for resting and breeding

LIFE HISTORY: Diet consists primarily of fish, including popular commercial species such as mackerel, herring and cod. Breeding season occurs mid-May to mid-July.

THREATS: Overfishing, climate change, pollution

RANGE: Alaska and the Pacific coast; greatest concentration of breeding grounds in Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands

CURRENT POPULATION: Unknown

During their mating season, one-ton male Steller sea lions are so busy defending their territory that they don't eat for two months. The stress of breeding takes its toll, but doesn't explain the mysterious population decline of this largest sea lion species.

In Alaska, populations fell nearly 80 percent from 1970 to 2000. Steller sea lions were declared a threatened species in 1990. Overfishing, climate change and pollution could all be affecting the sea lions' northern Pacific habitat, but marine biologists are still trying to determine the exact cause of this species' downward spiral.

Without a dramatic turnaround, these animals will approach extinction around the turn of the century. Conservationists used the Endangered Species Act to block a potentially harmful fisheries management plan that failed to analyze the impact of commercial fisheries on Steller sea lions.

Photo: steller sea lion © Donna A. Dewhurst, Alaska Image Library, USFWS