EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Boy Meets Sea Lion

Northern (Steller) Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus), Family Otariidae
Oregon Zoo, Portland, Oregon, USA

Explanation:  How much more important can it be for children to encounter wildlife, to learn that we all live in the same cocoon of Earth's environment?  

In this week's episode, we find ourselves at the wonderful Oregon Zoo in Portland, standing in awe of a massive marine mammal in the depths of its replicated environment.  
  

  
This is a northern sea lion, also called Steller sea lion, that we last encountered basking on a dock in Petersburg, Alaska.  

They have been designated as "threatened" on the Endangered Species Act in the 1990s, and more recently as "endangered" on the 2000 IUCN Red List of Species and for the western population.  

Since 1990 in the U.S., no-trawl buffer zones have been established around northern sea lion rookeries, although Native Alaskans are permitted to take sea lions for subsistence needs.  

Still, numbers continue to decline, possibly from pollution, overfishing, habitat disruption, and other causes.