{"id":298283,"date":"2026-05-03T20:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T20:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298283\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T20:32:10","slug":"massive-sea-lion-chonkers-draws-crowds-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298283\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive sea lion \u201cChonkers\u201d draws crowds in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Crowds gathered at San Francisco\u2019s Pier 39 this week to catch a glimpse of \u201cChonkers,\u201d a giant Steller sea lion spotted resting among much smaller California sea lions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Visitors stopped to take photos as the large marine mammal lounged on the dock, occasionally moving through the crowded pier before diving into the water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Marine experts say the animal belongs to the Steller species, the largest type of sea lion, with adult males capable of weighing more than a ton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Officials believe the sea lion may be stopping in San Francisco to feed and rest before returning to colder northern waters near Alaska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crowds gathered at San Francisco\u2019s Pier 39 this week to catch a glimpse of \u201cChonkers,\u201d a giant Steller&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[116100,101,103,102,104,106,105,100265],"class_list":["post-298283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california-sea-lions","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-steller-sea-lion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}