They are by far the most abundant pinnepeds in the region. Actually, seals and sea lions are in different taxonomic families. What we are most likely to encounter around the Wharf are California sea lions and harbor seals. They have more agile squirming bodies than harbor seals.
Seals have no ear flaps, have shorter flippers, and look less flexible.
The result is that the sea lions can climb up rocks and leap onto Wharf crossbeams, while the harbor seals wriggle their way out on gentle slopes and low lying rocks, like those in the San Lorenzo River. Sea Otters , Enhydra lutris of the fissiped family Sea otters, perhaps, might be called the teddy bears of the sea. The public is greatly enamored of them, and has helped this species gain the protection it needs to recover from the rampant fur hunting of the last centuries. Their fur is so luxuriously thick and soft that the survivors of the Vidas Bering party returning to Russia from the first explorative voyage of Alaska could ask any price for them and get it. Sea Otter Sea otters were considered extinct in our region until a small colony was spotted in 1938 off the rocky Big Sur coastline.