11 April 2009

sea "dawgs"

i've got myself a bit of a sea lion problem. 







normally this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but a girl needs her beauty sleep. i woke up at about 2 this morning with them barking up a storm on the dock outside. cort and i tried to meet some of them a few months ago, and snuck ourselves onto the dock where they were playing. don't let this cartoon fool you, they don't look anything like it. in fact, they are terrifying. i was so shocked by how massive they were, that i couldn't get very close. cortney was convinced they were friendly, but my heart started racing as one couldn't take his eyes off me. i was picturing him knocking me in the water with his huge fin and dragging me down to the depths of the ocean. don't worry, i was able to escape in time. since then, we have heard them on a number of occasions, but last night, they were having some kind of party on the dock. and since this is the closest thing I'm getting to a real dog in the next little while, I thought I should learn a little about them. here are some interesting facts about sea lions:

-often confused with seals, sea lions are called sea dogs due to the barking noise they make. seals make more of a grunting noise.
-both sea lions and seals belong to the scientific order, pinnipedia, meaning "fin-footed".
-sea lions spend half of their time in the water and half of their time on land, which sets them apart from other marine mammals (whales). 
-a male sea lion of a certain species can tip the scale at over 600 hundred pounds, compared to less than 400 for the average seal. 
-sea lions normally coexist peacefully with other marina mammal species, but breeding males and females with newborn pups, may threaten and chase intruders.....

....such as cort and myself.

1 comment:

anna said...

Cute and terrifying at the same time.