Swimming with Steller Sea Lions

 Swimming with Steller Sea Lions

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The relative accessibility of Norris Rocks — ok, three ferry rides and a boat trip from Vancouver — makes this one of the best places in the world to dive with Stellers. However, these waters are not for the faint of heart. The cold temperatures require lots of gear and the tides can be tricky. And if that’s not hard enough, you can get mobbed by curious giants!

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Like all sea lions, Stellers are incredibly awkward and ungainly while on land, but transform into ballerinas when they enter the water — controlled, elegant, graceful.

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The trick to engaging with Stellers is to do so on their terms. If you chase them down, they will simply out-swim you. Instead, you quietly enter the water near them and wait for them to get curious. Not long after I slipped beneath the waves a couple of sea lions swam over to see what this odd, uncoordinated intruder was. First, came a couple of quick “fly-bys” to see if I was dangerous. Next, came a gentle nudge or two. Then came the scariest, and most fun moment that I have had underwater.

One of the Steller’s primary ways of understanding their environment is by chewing on it. They can’t really feel things with their flippers, so they use their mouths. I hadn’t fully appreciated this until I looked over and saw a giant gaping mouth swimming towards me. Time slowed down and I remember having the thought, “oh, so this is how my life ends!”

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When the bite came it was incredibly gentle. The eight inch jaws closed around my arm with the force of a soft hug. There was no aggression, just a sea lion’s attempt to answer the question “what are you?” Some bites were firm, none were scary. Some were quick, as if to say “yuck, you taste disgusting,” while others were longer, as if I was a plaything to be carried around. For my part, I now understand what my dog’s chew toy feels like.

As the curious sea lions became more comfortable, more and more showed up. At one stage I looked over at my dive buddy and saw six curious Stellers circling his head — not a good time to be claustrophobic!

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As the dive ended and we surfaced, everyone was giddy. Laughing, exclaiming, and wanting to go back down. This was truly one of the most incredible wildlife experiences I have ever had — on land or underwater.

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While not technically migratory, Steller sea lions do move around during the year to follow seasonal concentrations of food. The species is divided into a stable western population centered around the Okhotsk and Bering Seas and an endangered eastern population that lives in the Gulf of Alaska. The Alaskan population has dropped by 70 to 80 percent since 1970, and although the cause of this is complex, the decline of the pollock and herring populations from over fishing are almost certainly a factor. In one year alone (2008) that pollock population dropped by 50 percent.

The dramatic declines in fish and sea lion populations point to the unintended consequences of our disregard for the delicate balance in our oceans. The problem with the thin blue line on our horizon is that we simply don’t see what lies beneath it. When we overfish we are not just impacting one species — we interrupt entire food chains and ecosystems.

It can be too easy to pretend that this doesn’t matter. If Steller sea lions disappear from our oceans forever, will anyone notice? What have we really lost? Well, people once said the same thing about bisons and wolves... and that didn’t work out too well either. The health of our oceans and the marine life that remains in their threatened waters is intimately connected to our own lives, more than we can know.