Ok, so these are gross pictures involving the autopsy of a Steller Sea Lion.  This sea lion appears to be a normal female.  She was caught in a fishing net and drown during the normal operations of that vessel.  I conducted the autopsy to determine if she was pregnant.  I found to my surprise that she did not have a uterus but instead had vas deferens.  My assumption was that this was an immature male who’s testis had not yet dropped, further assuming that they would have drop when the male reached sexual maturity.  If this growth pattern is correct, I have not yet found any information to support it.  (I don’t think anyone has looked a the growth and development of sea lion testis per say)  I have not yet found a satisfactory expiation for this.  But I have a hypothesis that this may be due to fishing practices in the Bering Sea.  We target fish when they are gravid.  That is, when they are laden with estrogen.  We fish where the fish are, or to be more precise where the food chain is.  Only 16% (at best) by weight of any fish is kept on board.  The other 84% is ground up and dumped over board.  On a 100 ton haul only 50 tons is female fish (actually the females weigh more but this will do for this example).  Of that 50 tons only 16% is kept onboard as product (note that this is only 8 tons!!).  The other 42 tons of female fish is ground up and dumped overboard and its all estrogen laden.  Why is it ground up?  The factory floor inside the trawler is constantly awash with water that is being pumped on to the ship.  This helps float away chunks of fish and other debris.  Other pumps then suck this water over board but must have the chunks of fish ground up or they will become clogged.  Thus, the 84% of the fish not used, is always ground up and pumped overboard.  That is a bunch of estrogen!!

As it turns out estrogen is not easily absorbed in the digestive tracks of most mammals.  But what effect it has on the lower food chain and subsequently up the food chain is not known.

Pic 1.

Here is what appears to be a female sea lion.

Enlarged picture here:

Pic 2.

Face shot.

Pic 3.

Back shot.  Note the lack of external testis.
 

Pic 4.

The snout was removed and sent back to NMFS.  There, the age of the Sea lion is determined va the canine teeth.
 
 

Pic 5.

 

Pic 6.

I am sitting on the chest of the sea lion facing backwards.  Under my right knee is his stomach.  It is very bloated as it is full of water.  Under the tip of my knife is the left branch of his vas deferens.  The small intestines can be seen under my right arm and a portion of the large intestine can be seen under my left hand.  Unfortunately this picture was take with a disposable camera so the picture quality is very low.

Enlarged pictures here:
 

Pic 7.

Sea Gulls.  The white foam-looking material trailing the ship to the left and right is ground-up fish.  This boat can only make 9 knots and does not produce much of a wake (which can be seen at the bottom in the middle of the shot).  You can tell weather or not other boats are in the area by just looking at the number of gulls trailing you.  There are several boats fishing with us at the time this picture was taken as there are not very many gulls.
 
 

Pic 8.

This is a male Stellar Sea lion.  I estimated its snout tail length to be approximately 12 feet.  It is feeding off our forward dump shoot on the port side.  You can see the ground up fish, the white milky colored water, starting from the lower right side of the picture extending to the left.  Near the base of the Sea lion is what appears to be turbulent water.  That is actually the aft Dumping shoot.  This male fed on our shoots for over an hour before disappearing.
 
 

For more information, contact Brad Elder at belder@ou.edu or snail mail: PO. Box 452, Noble, Oklahoma 73068