American Cetacean Society Lecture-Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

The American Cetacean Society/LA Chapter offers free presentations on whale research and conservation on the last Tuesday of every month in the John M. Olguin Auditorium.

For more information and scheduled speakers, please visit the ACS-LA website.

Tonight’s Topic
California Sea Lions: how many are there and what do they eat (with notes on other pinnipeds) will be presented by Mark Lowry.

California sea lions are the most numerous pinniped species in California. Since 1975, the population in the U.S. grew at an average annual rate of 7% and went from 89,000 animals in 1975 to 257,000 in 2014 with a peak of 306,000 in 2012. Sea lions at the Channel Islands in southern California foraged on northern anchovy, market squid, Pacific hake, Pacific mackerel, Pacific sardine, shortbelly rockfish, and Pacific mackerel; as well as an assortment of other fish and cephalopods. California sea lion diet shifted from an anchovy-based diet in the 1980s to a market squid based-diet in the 1990s and 2000s, with other prey-taxon taking their place when consumption of those two prey-taxon diminished. Prey taxa represented epipelagic species, epipelagic-mesopelagic species, and benthic-demersal species. Also, the northern elephant seal population continued to grow since it was nearly extirpated in the 19thand 20thcenturies, and the Pacific harbor seal population grew initially but currently appears to be stabilizing.