June 3, 2003
From: Anchorage
Daily News, 24 May
Faith the Steller Sea Lion sighted, seems to be doing well
Faith has been sighted. Not just detected by orbiting satellite but seen in upper Lynn Canal south of Haines with human eyes. And apparently behaving normally.
The person who saw Faith is Jamie Womble, a graduate student in the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Womble is spending her time these days in Southeast Alaska studying sea lions.
At midday Monday, Womble and others were in a boat using binoculars and a telephoto camera lens to glass the sea lions hauled out along the shores of Lynn Canal.
Faith was easy to recognize, Womble said, because of the creature's distinct transmitter attached to the top of her head.
"It was definitely her," she said. She took photographs and sent them to the Alaska SeaLife Center.
The sighting took place a few hundred yards north of Gran Point, a primary haulout for the sea lions and near the spot where Faith was released more than three weeks ago.
Faith was on the rocks. Other sea lions were nearby but not next to it, according to Womble.
"She was just doing what sea lions do, in the daytime — hauled out on a rock," she said. "As far as I could tell, she looked good."
Russ Andrews, a sea lion specialist at the SeaLife Center, found Womble's report "really encouraging" because Faith is apparently feeding, he said.
"She didn't look skinny," Andrews said. His only concern was that Faith was sitting by itself, some 150 feet from the nearest sea lion, when the animals commonly haul out nearly on top of each other.
Could be, Andrews said, that Faith is still not comfortable with some of the big male sea lions in its neighborhood.
Biologists are keeping close watch on Faith, the Steller sea lion that was stranded as a pup, rescued and released April 29 after nearly 11 months of rehabilitation at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward. Faith is wearing special transmitter "tags" that allow scientists, through orbiting satellites, to monitor its movements and whereabouts.
Through the biologists, the Daily News will track Faith's progress as the sea lion adapts to its new world, and publish periodic updates.