Cacophony of 500 sea lions ring out 2025 off Trial Islands near Oak Bay

Cacophony of 500 sea lions ring out 2025 off Trial Islands near Oak Bay

Published 5:30 am Tuesday, January 6, 2026

A record-breaking number of sea lions gathering off the shores of Oak Bay ensures, “you cannot not hear them,” according to one nearby resident.

Each winter, Jacques Sirois documents the influx of sea lions gathering at Trial Islands.

“The numbers vary a lot from day to day, from week to week,” the avid bird watcher and former warden for the ecological reserve told the Oak Bay News.

Sirois circles the islands regularly – 40 times in 2025 – in search of interesting bird life, whether it’s a bump in population or some species there at an unusual time.

“You usually see more birds than sea lions,” he said.

Things are flipped this winter.

Sea lions spend time in local waters regularly, in small numbers. Highly visible as they haul out on the islands, the last three winters in particular have seen a massive influx of the two usual species, Stellar and California sea lions.

That peaked to finish the year.

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“On Dec. 31 (2025), the barking was so loud I said, ‘I’ve got to go see this, I have to go check this out’. So I went. To my surprise, I estimated more than 500, which I had never imagined seeing so many there.”

He counted 40 Stellars roaring and the balance of California sea lions barking up a storm in a “loud cacophony.” That day, there were so many that they filled the small rock between Lesser and Greater Trial Island, with hundreds taking to the land on Greater Trial Island as well.

It’s a positive sign for their populations, and he still has his fingers crossed – hesitantly – it’s a harbinger of a herring recovery.

“We’ve seen a lot of juvenile herring in Greater Victoria in the last year or two, but it’s still only a fraction of what used to be here,” he said. “The lack of herring in our area is still a major source of concern. This is what makes me dream a little, this is a sign something could be happening in herring.”

The previous peak was 280 of the animals counted using aerial images in February 2025.

By Jan. 5, the numbers dwindled to five sea lions on the islet and “barely 200” on Greater Trial Island.

But other tidbit observations have enticed the naturalist this winter. A moulting northern elephant seal was observed in early December, but its tags couldn’t be seen to confirm identity. He hoped it was the famous Emerson, who gained a multitude of fans after popping up on beaches across Greater Victoria.

There’s a bump in the seal population as well, which bodes well for the uptick in orca buffet visits.