Well, here’s another Monday morning smiler, just to help get the week off to a good start! This is a closeup portrait of a young male Steller sea lion photographed on the BC coast off Vancouver Island. These North Pacific residents have now been designated as ‘near-threatened’ by conservationists (IUCN) for 10 years, but what does that exactly mean? Initially your guess would be as good as mine, but the ‘official’ acclamation goes something like “it is a species that ‘may’ become vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but doesn’t yet qualify as threatened.” So that clears it up then – it means they might become threatened to endangerment one day, but aren’t there yet. Isn’t that just about the same for all wildlife!
