{"id":537204,"date":"2026-03-21T18:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537204\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:38:16","slug":"huge-steller-sea-lion-returns-to-s-fs-pier-39-how-to-see-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537204\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge Steller sea lion returns to S.F&#8217;s Pier 39: how to see him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Steller sea lion spotted sunbathing at Pier 39 last week is in no hurry to leave San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Harbor officials said Friday that the massive sea lion, \u201cwho looks more like a bear,\u201d was continuing to frequent a dock near the Pier 39 viewing area. A photograph from the pier showed the Steller gazing off the edge of the dock, dwarfing the sea lions around him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe&#8217;s a morning lark, so you need to get to the Pier early to see him,\u201d officials said in a news release. \u201cThis is a perfect way to enjoy the first day of spring on the waterfront.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pier 39 is typically populated by California sea lions, which don\u2019t typically exceed more than 850 pounds or 7 feet. Male Steller sea lions can reach up to 2500 pounds and 11 feet, according to harbor officials. They\u2019re among the largest members of the \u201ceared seal\u201d family to which all sea lions and fur seals belong.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stellers are also distinguished by their light brown, fuzzy coats, giving the visitor to Pier 39 his bear-like appearance. The huge sea lions typically live around Alaska, but stray as far as San Francisco \u201cevery few years,\u201d harbormaster Sheila Chandor told the Chronicle last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steller sea lion spotted sunbathing at Pier 39 last week is in no hurry to leave San&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3805,2356,192,6632,5284,79,201],"class_list":["post-537204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-outdoors","tag-san-francisco","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}