A threatened Steller sea lion made a rare appearance alongside his more common California cousins south of Santa Cruz, Calif., a local boat captain said.
"He was huge, massive," Capt. Yohn Gideon, skipper of the Elkhorn Slough Safari, said of the blonde giant spotted at the mouth of Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing. "There were bunches of sea otters, which are everybody's favorite, and California sea lions, and then this big boy popped up, unmistakable."
The sighting was confirmed Monday by Marina Nichols of the Marine Mammal Center's Monterey Bay Operations, a rescue group.
Only about 500 of the estimated 40,000 Steller sea lions live along California's coast, the center said, with the majority of the population being in Alaska.
Gideon told the Santa Cruz Sentinel he was conducting a tour Sunday when he spotted the Steller, a first in his 17 years of boating in the harbor and slough.
The typical California sea lion in the harbor weighs in at around 600 pounds. Gideon said, and the Steller was three times as large and lighter in color.
Denise Greig, a marine biologist in the Marine Mammal Center's Sausalito headquarters, said they don't often go into Elkhorn Slough, and their size and rarity makes them a treat to see.
"They are endangered in certain parts of their range so it's pretty exciting to have one down there," Greig said.
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