California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in British Columbia

The United States population of California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) range from southeast Alaska to the Pacific coast of central Mexico. While this population does not breed in Canada, some sub-adult and adult males migrate northwards to British Columbia during the non-breeding season with an arrival in August-October and a departure in April-May. The population in coastal BC has not been fully assessed since 1985. However, opportunistic counts suggest that California Sea Lions overwintering in BC increased in abundance from approximately 1,000 animals in the mid-2000s to several thousand individuals in more recent years.

The survey targeted Steller sea lions and sites were chosen based on knowledge of historically occupied rookeries and haul-out sites with nearby areas monitored for potential shifts in distribution. The presence of California Sea Lions are based on incidental observations while surveying sites for Steller sea lion counts. This dataset contains counts that have been collected from sightings of individuals in the 2016/2017 survey season.

Datasets available for download

• California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in BCFGDB/GDB
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• Data DictionaryCSV
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• California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in BC -- ShapefilesSHP
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• California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in BCEsri REST
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• California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in BCEsri REST
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• British Columbia
• California sea lion
• Game Wildlife
• Marine biology
• Nature and Environment
• Oceans
• Pacific
• Population distribution
• Science and Technology
• Sciences
• Scientific research
• abundance
• aerial survey
• sightings

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:52 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:52 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota, Oceans
Title Title for the Dataset.	California Sea Lion Haulout Counts in British Columbia
Description A description of the dataset.	The United States population of California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) range from southeast Alaska to the Pacific coast of central Mexico. While this population does not breed in Canada, some sub-adult and adult males migrate northwards to British Columbia during the non-breeding season with an arrival in August-October and a departure in April-May. The population in coastal BC has not been fully assessed since 1985. However, opportunistic counts suggest that California Sea Lions overwintering in BC increased in abundance from approximately 1,000 animals in the mid-2000s to several thousand individuals in more recent years. The survey targeted Steller sea lions and sites were chosen based on knowledge of historically occupied rookeries and haul-out sites with nearby areas monitored for potential shifts in distribution. The presence of California Sea Lions are based on incidental observations while surveying sites for Steller sea lion counts. This dataset contains counts that have been collected from sightings of individuals in the 2016/2017 survey season.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	British Columbia California sea lion Game Wildlife Marine biology Nature and Environment Oceans Pacific Population distribution Science and Technology Sciences Scientific research abundance aerial survey sightings
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-10-18
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/08f2ea2c-8fe3-4a97-b4f5-944580ac4154
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Fisheries and Oceans Canada | Pêches et Océans Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division/Aquatic Ecosystems and Marine Mammal Science Section, 250-756-7152, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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