An entire species is dying off, and quickly for that matter. Since the 1960's, about 94 percent of all Steller sea lions have been killed off due to reasons "...including pollution, climatic changes, marine debris, and disease – so far to no avail." Vanishing from Alaskan waters, and biological detectives not having a reason as to why, David Holthouse tells the mystery just how it is, and just what we can do to help slow down the serial killings of a species that has no profound reason to die off quite yet. With very few of these specific sea lions left, an ecosystem is being damaged and in turn, is hurting innocent marine-mammals.
             Named after George Wilhelm Steller, the Steller Sea Lion was discovered way back in 1742 during his voyage around some harsh Alaskan waters. Historically, the range from the Gulf of Alaska to the Bering Sea and all around the Aleutian Islands has been the main home to the Steller Sea Lion for centuries. From 1960 to 1989 the population of these sea lions has decreased dramatically from 140,000 all the way to 65,000 respectively. Many, including coordinators from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Division of Wildlife Conservation, believe that people may be at the root of this problem, and that something incredibly unnatural is causing this heartbreaking story. Something somewhere is out of balance.
             Narrowed down by both federal and state level scientists, the cause of this monstrosity has been left to commercial fishing. Not necessarily is it that commercial fisherman are catching the northern sea lions, but that they are gathering up all the fish and Pollock that these sea lions live on. Not only are the Steller Sea Lions the species slowly depleting from earth's surface, but many other marine-mammals, too, due to the large commercial fishing market that is "altering the abundance of key prey species in ways that make foraging more difficult" for all t...