As we were walking across Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco recently, I noticed this brightly colored status of a seal in front of the SkyStar Ferris Wheel:

I had to stop and get a better look at it, as it was much less noisy, smelly and likely to move than the sea lions you’d usually see on Pier 39:

It turns out that this statue is actually of a sea lion too (my bad), and it’s one of 30 such statues that were placed (mostly) along Embarcadero in 2020 for the 30-year anniversary of the sea lions “invading” Pier 39 after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989:

map of seal statues (Paul Nakamoto/Aquarium of the Bay)

For more details about these statues, read the SFGate article on why 30 sea lions popped up around San Francisco in 2020.

I was mostly drawn to the circle if colorful, numbered icons that this specific statue has on its chest. I couldn’t quickly find any more info on this though, so if anyone knows what they mean - hit me up on the links at the top of this page 🔝.

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