Novel stellar sea lion behavior

[StellarChum]

Hi all! I told this story to Janna, and she MADE me put it on this website

I went diving in Alaska in June. The diving was GREAT, but that's another story for another day. One of the dives we did was off a rock where there were probably 60 or so stellar sea lions hanging out. It's a dive the operator has been doing for about 16 years, and the most that's ever happened before is that one diver with a dry hood got a puncture about 40 minutes into the dive. However, this dive the sea lions started to mouth camera gear after about 10 minutes, and mouth people after about 17 minutes. About 20 minutes into the dive, I was bitten on the head--no blood, but a couple of punctures in my neoprene hood, and I could definitely feel the teeth. We aborted the dive at about 25 minutes. It turns out, 9 people were at least mouthed (maybe bitten), three of those for sure were bitten (holes in hoods), and the dive master actually bled from his bites (was bitten twice). Needless to say, the dive operator is going to be avoiding that particular dive spot indefinitely.

My completely private and unscientific opinion is that they were under stress since the salmon runs were late and the halibut catch has been low for the past few years, but that's just my theory. We saw stellars at other dive spots, but they were not nearly as aggressive. Personally, I'm going to be avoiding sea lion encrusted rocks for a while.

Happy diving!

[Tom Nic]

Thanks for telling the story!

...and for those of us who are just a little paranoid of 600 to 3,000 lb pinnipeds your story just reinforces that.

Hmmm.... now WHY would Janna have "made" you tell that story?

[Scott G]

That's consistent with the behavior of Stellar's down here in Oregon... lots of mouthing, some biting, occaional smashing.

Always suprised to see video of how brazenly people play with them in BC, knew there was a difference, i guess that's it... they must be a little nicer up there.

Maybe some of the OR boys made it up there.

The California's are the ones i don't trust...

[Scott G]

ps. i'll bet those who got bit in the head had those air release point on top of their hoods.... they love those.

[Dmitchell]

My completely private and unscientific opinion is that they were under stress since the salmon runs were late and the halibut catch has been low for the past few years, but that's just my theory. We saw stellars at other dive spots, but they were not nearly as aggressive. Personally, I'm going to be avoiding sea lion encrusted rocks for a while.

Happy diving!

This is not unusual around here. You were more than likely diving right at a rookery or haulout. While really cool, not technically legal since the sea lion is protected as a Marine Mammal.

I have a lot of friends who are research divers and they actually dive at these sites to capture pups and tag or brand them for research purposes. It's not uncommon for them to act exactly like you described. The other thing you have to consider, is that in June, the pups are young and starting to become active so the mothers are probably real protective.

Fishing from the boat has been a little slow but there is still plenty of food out there for them. To me what you describe is perfectly normal.

Dave

[nwscubamom]

Hmmm.... now WHY would Janna have "made" you tell that story?

hehe, I MADE her tell the story because it completely reinforces (and tops) my experience I had with the ones out in Neah Bay!

No more surveying for us near those Stellars.

- Janna

[Biodiversity_Guy]

Neah Bay!

[BASSMAN]

This story reminds me of Tom Nic and I being under attack by a single, female, Stellar Sea Lion,
said to be approximately 800 lbs! Three of us doing a night dive in Sitka Harbor, all being smashed down multiple times.
One time, I looked up to see her looking at me face to face as I screamed like a girl into my regulator.
Then not long after that Diver Dave signals for us to "go up" because he actually had a Mouthing to the head.
And as a matter of fact I did have a hood that has the vent on top. So that makes me wonder if I did not look up and scream, I would probably have been mouthed too! I'm not sure what I would have done then, but I'm sure it would not have been pretty!