(AP) -- Hundreds of sea lions that abruptly blew out of San Francisco Bay's Pier 39 last Thanksgiving have apparently found a new home at another tourist attraction - 500 miles north on the Oregon coast.
By now this is pretty old news. Declining fish stocks in the bay forced the sea lions and the brown pelicans north in search of food. People who work on the docks can live with this, people on the shore, not so much. While they were on route, and out of sight, I heard all sorts of theories. A little boy explained to me about sharks and their dining habits. He had it down too. Growls, gnashing of teeth, and he mimed both the shark and the doomed sea lion. Total entertainment. There was the greenie, going the man-made virus / die-off route. Bit too scientifical for me to follow. The best, however, was a story in the SF weekly about a fisherman's dog that scared them off. One 60 pound pooch, according to our ace journalist, managed to dislodge several thousand animals, along several miles of coast, by barking. Sea lions are big animals, totally at home in the water, darn fast in short bursts on land, congenitally cranky, and can bark louder than any fido you might know. This brings me to my conclusion that newspapers are not the best place to obtain news. But you knew that.
