Hundreds of sea lions are taking over a major roadway in Moss Landing

A small harbor on Monterey Bay has become a gathering point for hundreds of sea lions since the summer.

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On Tuesday, swarms of sea lions were located just off Sandholdt Road at the bridge over Moss Landing Harbor in Monterey County, with many of them spilling onto the roadway. The animals have been appearing in the area since July and returning in bigger numbers, Giancarlo Rulli, an associate director at the Marine Mammal Center, told SFGATE. But it’s only in the past two months that they’ve made their way onto at least one lane of the road, causing traffic delays as authorities work to clear the area. 

Crews from the California Highway Patrol have been patrolling the area daily, using police sirens, barriers and shields to flush the sea lions off the road, Rulli said. A video posted Tuesday by KABC-TV shows a CHP vehicle blaring a siren as dozens of sea lions move off the road. And in a September CHP Facebook post, the agency responded to a group of sea lions in the middle of the road, calling it the “perfect spot” for sea lions to “bask in the California sunshine.” (CHP did not respond to SFGATE’s request for information.)

Even when authorities have managed to move the sea lions out, they have quickly returned to the same spot, Rulli said. Though the grouping is new to the Moss Landing area, he said it’s common to see the animals in large quantities, especially farther south along the Monterey Peninsula. 

“It’s abnormal for that bridge, but this is something that is not abnormal for the area,” Rulli said. 

It’s unclear why the sea lions have crowded the Moss Landing area in recent months, though one factor may be its proximity to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, he said. The area around the thriving sanctuary offers abundant food and plenty of places for the animals to rest.

“The Monterey Peninsula is arguably the best local supermarket for marine life along the California coast,” Rulli said. “In the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, you have long beaches for these animals to rest in between foraging trips. Those are your two primary factors.”

As an extreme El Niño season looms, he said, warmer ocean waters could also be part of the reason marine mammals are moving to new areas.

“Forage fish in general are on the move,” Rulli said. “So marine mammals, in order to keep up with that, are having to migrate farther, move farther. We’re seeing those impacts already.”

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It’s also unknown why the sea lions have recently been spilling onto the roadway in Moss Landing, but it could be partly because recent heat waves have made the concrete a warm, comfortable place for the animals to rest, Rulli said. Though it’s become extremely common for sea lions to rest ashore on local beaches over the past several years, the grouping in Moss Landing is “slightly more challenging.”

The harbor bridge is a major access point for local residents and people who go out to fish, he said. As more sea lions continue to return to the area, there has also been a “dramatic increase” in the number of nonresidents traveling to the hot spot to see the animals.

“[Visitors] are getting very close to these sea lions with their cellphones, and slowing down traffic, stopping their cars on the bridge, and that is really a hamper for local community members that need what is already a reduced traffic bridge because of the sea lions’ presence,” Rulli said. 

Marine life advocates are urging visitors to avoid coming to the area while the large groups of sea lions are still there. 

“There’s amazing places to go see sea lions elsewhere,” Rulli said. “This is not one of them. There’s no real sidewalk, so the traffic is already very hampered.”

Officials at the Marine Mammal Center aren’t sure exactly how long the sea lions will remain in Moss Landing, but it’s likely the animals will eventually move later in the season. 

“They’re going to move where the food is and certainly food is moving as a result of warming ocean temperatures,” Rulli said. “So we fully expect that as food sources shift, so will sea lions.”