Various things immediately come to mind when you hear the words San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge? Definitely. Cable cars? For sure. Sourdough bread? It certainly comes to my mind. You can add sea lions to this list as well.

The blubbery, whiskered marine mammals are the stars at Pier 39, one of the city’s biggest tourist draws. It’s normally a given that as you approach the pier you’ll hear a caterwauling chorus of barking that drowns out everything else, from traffic along the Embarcadero to the cries of those ever-present seagulls. Lolling on the floating docks built especially for them, engaging in mock shoving matches or lazily rolling over like a dog playing dead, the sea lions seem to bask in their reputation as local celebrities. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they started posing for pictures; there certainly are enough camera-toting people positioning themselves for that one special shot. And that’s why it made national news last fall when almost all of them inexplicably disappeared.

Volunteers with Sausalito’s Marine Mammal Center counted up to 1,700 sea lions congregating at Pier 39 in late October. A month later that number had plummeted to around 900; by the end of December there were less than a dozen. Marine biologists and visitors alike found themselves wondering, as pop singer Paula Cole did about cowboys in her big ’90s Top 40 hit, “Where have all the sea lions gone?”

No one really knows what’s behind the pinniped defection. The biologists guess that changes in the food supply—specifically, a notable lack of herring in San Francisco Bay—drove them to seek sustenance elsewhere. El Niño, the meteorological phenomenon that tends to be blamed for almost everything these days, is the actual culprit here; the bay’s water temperature rose to a degree the cold water-loving fish evidently found not to their liking. A theory that the sea lions moved north following their dinner seemed likely when they began showing up in big numbers along the central Oregon coast, about 500 miles away, soon after vanishing from their usual stomping grounds (which include, in addition to Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey and the mouth of the Russian River in Sonoma County).

But recently the sea lions have slowly been returning, so hopefully you’ll hear as well as see them the next time you visit Pier 39. And there are plenty of other diversions besides sea lion watching. Wander in and out of the specialty shops, where the accent is on edibles—fudge, funnel cakes, you name it. Check out the magicians, jugglers, acrobats and other street performers (kids in particular will be enthralled). And if you want to learn more about sea lions in general stop by the Marine Mammal Center information kiosk at the pier; it’s staffed by volunteers who may be able to give you the lowdown on when (or whether) these gregarious creatures will make a full comeback. 

Of course you can’t leave without trying a local specialty, soup in a sourdough bread bowl. Boudin, a northern California bakery chain, has a Pier 39 branch. I can personally vouch for the excellence of their bread; I always pick up a loaf of sourdough at the airport (how’s that for convenience?) to take home with me. The soup choices include chicken noodle, roasted garlic tomato and butternut squash, but there’s really only one way to go: clam chowder. That’s the traditional choice, and enjoying it at the pier is a traditional San Francisco experience.