Loud, sharp and ‘spellbinding’ — hundreds of outrageous sea lions intersect on Powell River

Hundreds of sea lions have converged on a beach in Powell River, B.C., as photographers and inlet lovers arrive to take in a sight. 

Powell River proprietor Lesley Armstrong says a sea lions started nearing around Christmas and their numbers have been growing to a indicate where a animals are covering scarcely any in. of a barges, beach and fin during Second Beach. 

“It’s only turn a many extraordinary visible spectacle. And everybody’s going down there,” Armstrong pronounced over a phone from her home. 

“It’s unequivocally spellbinding since they’re so shrill and they’re so rough and they’re all personification in a H2O — those that aren’t sleeping and fibbing on a rocks.”

Armstrong says there were adult to 3 dozen cars parked during a beach on Sunday morning to watch a vast mammals graze adult opposite any other.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans put adult a pointer warning people not to interact with them, though Armstrong says a sea lions are packaged so firmly together that no one could even try to travel among them. 

‘I was only amazed’

It’s not a initial time sea lions have converged in a area during this time of year, Armstrong says, though even long-term residents have never seen them in such good numbers. 

She says some of a sea lions seem to import adult to a tonne. 

“I stood there with both my dogs on leashes about 10 feet from them and they only didn’t even caring that we was there. we was only amazed,” she said.

“When they arise adult they bellow and bellow and bellow and it’s really social. It’s really entertaining.”

Armstrong says her shrill new neighbours appear to be a brew of Steller and California sea lions. 

Growing populations

According to a Vancouver Aquarium, Steller sea lions are utterly common off a seashore of B.C., though their populations had been mysteriously shrinking over a past few years. 

They were announced involved in 1997, a aquarium says on a website, though their numbers are solemnly growing. 

The Marine Mammal Centre says California sea lions are found as distant north as Vancouver Island and as distant south as Baja California in Mexico.

The organization’s website describes them as “opportunistic eaters” that feed on squid, octopus, herring, rockfish, mackerel and tiny sharks. Their numbers also seem to be growing.

Some groups contend seals and sea lions have been sepulchral in a past few years, to a discomfit of some fishermen who wish to start sport them. 

Advocates of a hunt are also pitching it as a approach to help B.C.’s involved southern proprietor torpedo whales, that feed mainly on salmon. 

‘You can smell it’

Armstrong says she doesn’t consider a sea lions will be in Powell River most longer.

That might be a blessing — she says warmer continue in a past few days has led to a rather sharp odour from a outrageous beasts. 

“You can smell it. It’s most some-more fetid,” she said.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/loud-smelly-and-spellbinding-hundreds-of-huge-sea-lions-converge-on-powell-river-1.4976784?cmp=rss