Shilshole sea lion surge: Marina docks overrun in Ballard

Dozens of sea lions have made the public guest docks at Shilshole Bay Marina in Ballard their new, temporary home, a customary move over the last few years.

“It is that time of year again in Ballard. I’m not sure if you guys are aware of this, but sea lions have returned en masse to Shilshole Marina’s guest docks,” Andrew Lanier, the producer of “The Gee and Ursula Show,” said. “They sprawl across the planks like they’re at a spa retreat. There are about 120 that have made themselves right at home, barking, lounging. They block access for the actual boaters who want to use the guest marinas there.”

Yellow caution tape can be seen along the walkways as a reminder for humans to keep their distance from the sea lions, which will bite when threatened. According to the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program, sea lions, a federally protected marine mammal, tend to ignore deterrents like sound devices.

“I think sea lions are so darn cute, but I’m also old enough to remember Herschel,” KIRO host Ursula Reutin said. “This was all the way back in the 80s. This is like true Seattle lore.”

The legend of Herschel the sea lion

Herschel was a sea lion in the early to mid-1980s who moved to the Ballard Locks in order to grab salmon funneled through a fish ladder. Herschel and other young males ate so much fish, it became an annual tradition to remove him and his “gang,” gaining national media attention in the process.

A newspaper account from 1985 claimed Herschel could kill 13 fish in 80 minutes—averaging a fish every six minutes.

“A fat, sassy California sea lion nicknamed Herschel is being blamed for the devastation of an entire run of steelhead trout, one of the most popular game fish in the Pacific Northwest,” the LA Times wrote in 1985.

Whether or not Herschel and his accomplices could take credit for the declining steelhead population, the truth is that in 1982, 2,575 steelhead, Washington’s state fish, had swum through the locks, according to Hakai Magazine. By 1988, only 686 were counted.

“They tried to relocate him to Northern California, and he kept coming back,” Lanier added. “He’d show up in the Columbia River, I believe. They tried a massive fake orca whale to scare him away. That didn’t work. They tried rubber bullets like acoustic devices. They treated him like a basic Seattle protester.”

Sea lions at Ballard are an ecological success story

“We’re getting to witness the success of a population of sea lions that reached carrying capacity on the outer coast and is pushing up to the north end of its range,” Marine Scientist Scott Veirs, who leads the marine mammal work group for the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program, said, accoridng to MyBallard.com.

“But it’s expensive to rent those docks. It’s like $100 or $250 a day if you want to park your boat there, and if you can’t access it, I don’t know what to tell you,” Lanier said. “You’re just going to have to build new docks, because the sea lions aren’t going to go away.”

“Well, there’s got to be a way,” Ursula said. “But I just don’t know enough to know what the right thing to do is. Just don’t harm them.”

Listen to the full conversation here.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.