"These animals are always yelling at each other," writes photographer
Joel Sartore of the Steller sea lions on Alaska's Lowrie Island. Here,
two females go nose-to-nose over a disputed bit of territory in a
crowded rookery. Alaska's Steller sea lion populations have been in
precipitous decline over the last 30 years, and scientists are at a loss
to explain the cause.
Stellers are the largest of all sea lions and they have an
appetite to match. These giant pinnipeds hunt fish, squid, octopus and,
rarely, smaller seals. They are found off northern Pacific coasts from
Japan to California.
Steller sea lion breeding is one of nature's
great mass spectacles. When these giants thunder ashore, their favored
beaches, called rookeries, disappear under their numbers. Young pups are
sometimes crushed by the throng, unheeded by powerful males with only a
single purpose in mind. Bulls (males) must establish and hold a beach
territory in order to breed. Most do not achieve this until they are
nine or ten years of age.
