Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus ) young‐of‐the‐year ( YOY ) are nutritionally dependent upon their dam through the majority of their first year. Several indices of body condition were measured in YOY 1.5–9 mo of age captured in Southeast Alaska ( n = 122), the Gulf of Alaska ( n = 182), and the Aleutian Islands ( n = 38) to test the hypothesis that nutritional stress impacted the ability of adult female Steller sea lions...

Steller sea lions ( SSL ; Eumetopias jubatus ) grow their vibrissae continually, providing a multiyear record suitable for ecological and physiological studies based on stable isotopes. An accurate age‐specific vibrissae growth rate is essential for registering a chronology along the length of the record, and for interpreting the timing of ecologically important events. We utilized four methods to estimate the growth rate of v...

A bstract We evaluated various measurements of mass, morphology, and blubber thickness as indices of fatness for Steller sea lions by correlation with the percentage of total body mass comprised by the sculp (%SCULP). We concluded LMD‐index was the best index evaluated because it had a relatively high r 2 (0.58), had a linear relationship with %SCULP, and the intercept term was not different from O. We suggest the development...

A bstract Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus ) numbers in the United States declined by about 75% over the past 20+ yr. They are classified, under the U. S. Endangered Species Act, as “threatened” in the eastern portion of their range and as “endangered” in the western portion. We analyzed trends in numbers of pup and non‐pup Steller sea lions counted in Southeast Alaska between 1979 and 1997. Sea lion numbers, based on cou...