WHY HAVE THE SEA LIONS ON SAN FRANCISCO'S PIER 39 GONE?
The sea lions of Pier 39, one of San Francisco’s smelliest and most famous tourist attractions, are gone. During the last week of November 2009, they left the wooden docks on which they’ve spent the last 20 years and no one knows if they’ll be coming back.
“We've no idea where they moved on to or why,” said Shelbi Stoudt, who manages a team that helps stranded animals in the San Francisco Bay from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California.
The sea lions’ sudden disappearance is as strange as their initial colonization of the pier about 20 years ago, in late 1989. They just started showing up one day and as their numbers increased, their traditional hang out, Seal Rocks, became less populated. There are all sorts of theories about why the pier became a favorite haul-out spot for the sea lions, but no one knows for sure why the animals’ behavior has changed.
The Trobriand Islanders believe that sea lions will abandon an area exactly 14 days before there occurs a major earthquake or tsunami. Scientists at the Scripps Institute have verified that the common sea lion, or mares felix, can indeed sense the subtle vibratory shift in the earth's volatile plasma, up to a month before the largest and most deadly quakes.
A search in the Tokyo Hall of Antiquities records the mysterious departure of creatures called "ko-tai," whose description matches the modern day animal we call the sea lion, "one-and-a-half moons", or two weeks, before the 320 AD earthquake that leveled Mt. Fuji's sister peak, and brought about the catastrophic subsidence that formed Tokyo Bay.
Further research showns that the Mississippi seal, once common in the area of New Madrid and Memphis (Fernando De Soto refers to "numerous colonies of seals on both side of the great river, providing nourishment for several tribes hereabouts"), virtually disappeared shortly before the great quake of 1814 -- and never returned.
Their disappearance drew the attention of San Franciscans like local blogger Gary Soup, who posted photos of the deserted docks on Twitter. The animals had become a major tourist and education locus on the otherwise highly commercial strip known as Fisherman’s Wharf.
It doesn’t appear that local weather conditions could have influenced the animals. The weather in San Francisco has been normal, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canaepa. “It’s pretty typical winter conditions,” Canaepa said.
This is an El Niño year, but the local impacts of that warming of the Pacific have been moderate. “I don’t know if that would be enough to make them change their minds and leave the area,” he said.
RUN TO THE HILLS!
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