The California Sea Lion

FRENCH name: Otarie de Californie or Lion de mer de Californie

English name : California sea lion

LATINE name : Zalophus californianus

Geographic distribution: the California sea lion lives on the west coast of North America, in the cold waters of the Pacific ocean, including San Francisco Bay. It prefers intertropical waters and is absent from the extreme polar regions.

Habitat: the California Sea Lion spends its life between the open ocean and the rocky stretches of the USA’s Pacific Coast and the Galapagos Islands.

Weight: it can weigh between 110 and 400 kg.

Size: it measures between 2 and 2.5 m in length.

Longevity: it has a lifespan of more than 15 years.

Diet: the California sea lion feeds on fish (capelins, sand eels, herring, silver hake, and rockfish) and mollusks (octopuses and squids). It is thought that its vibrissae (or whiskers) play an important role in the search for food and the capturing of prey.

Biology: the sea lion is a marine mammal, meaning it possesses lungs, and although it spends much of its life underwater, it must surface to breathe. 

Differences with seals: the sea lion differs from the seal in that it has external ears (auricle or pinna), which the seal does not have. The sea lion also uses its foreflippers (its feet) to swim in the water and to walk on land, whereas on land, a seal crawls on the ground by undulating on its belly.

Reproduction: the sea lion reaches sexual maturity towards 5 or 6 years of age. The male forms a harem, which can include around twenty females.

Predators: the sea lion is hunted by sharks (the great white, the whitetip reef shark, the silvertip shark and the grey reef shark), killer whales and, in polar regions, the polar bear. Some birds, such as the giant petrel and the Turkey vulture, can attack young sea lions. 

Threats: the California sea lion almost vanished at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was a period when it was hunted by man for its fur, its fat as well as its meat.

Protective measures: in 1900, to save the species in California, hunting was banned. More recently, in 1980, a marine sanctuary was set up off the Los Angeles coast: the ChanneI slands National Marine Sanctuary. Thanks to this sanctuary population numbers have risen and the California sea lion is once again flourishing in its natural habitat.

The sea lions at Nausicaa: Nausicaa’s resident sea lions were not taken from the wild. They were acquired through exchanges with other European zoos, where they were born in captivity.