The Alaska SeaLife Center welcomed a much-heralded guest recently: a baby Steller sea lion was born, with both mother and newborn doing well, according to officials.
Those who oversee the facility celebrated the birth as a major step for a species which saw a decline in numbers during the 1980s and 1990s despite its protected status. The birth is also part of a study to examine the transmission of nutrients from mother to pup.
"This is the first time since the 1980s that there's been a Steller sea lion birth in North America," the center's president, Tara Riemer Jones, told the Associated Press, "so we're totally thrilled."
The mother, Eden, is 13 years old and on breeding loan from the Vancouver Aquarium in British Columbia. The father, meanwhile, is the resident male at the center.
"Woody is the proud dad," Jones said, adding that since he is turning 20, they are not sure how much longer he will be around.
Stellers are the largest of all sea lions with a life expectancy of 18 for males and 30 for females.
Females begin to reproduce at about five years of age, according to National Geographic, while the males must establish and hold a beach territory in order to breed - a rite of passage that doesn't usually occur until they are nine or 10.
In all, males may grow to 11 feet (3.25 meters) in length and weigh almost 2,500 pounds (1,120 kilograms). In contrast, females only reach a maximum of 9 feet (2.9 meters) and 1,000 pounds (350 kilograms).
Found throughout the Northern Pacific Rim from Japan to central California, the current population is estimated to be about 40,000, with about 500 living in California, according to The Marine Mammal Center.
All told, the overall population has dropped by 80 percent in the last 30 years.
One possibility for the sharp decrease likely resides in a number of reasons, according to The Marine Mammal Center, including a decline in the fish they eat due to commercial fisheries, drowning and entanglement in nets.
Stellers are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which forbids the killing , harming or harassing of any marine mammal, as well as the Endangered Species Act.