A
sea lion of the temperate Eastern
Pacific, the
Steller or Northern sea lion (
Eumetopias jubatus) ranges from the Gulf of Alaska in the north to central California. Steller sea lions were listed as threatened on the U.S.
endangered species list in the 1990s and have since been the object of intense study. One suspected cause of their precipitous fall in numbers is overfishing of
wall-eyed pollock[?] and other fish stocks in the Gulf of Alaska.