Sea Lion Beach - Hanson Island, British Columbia, Canada

Welcome to a rocky shoreline on Hanson Island in British Columbia, Canada, looking out across Blackfish Sound towards the forested islands of the Broughton Archipelago.

This is a haul-out, a stretch of shore where sea lions drag themselves out of the water to rest, dry off and warm up between feeding trips. Steller and California sea lions both use the coast here.

Numbers swell through autumn and winter as the herring and salmon arrive, and thin out in summer when many animals head to their breeding rookeries. An empty beach is normal.

The camera is run by OrcaLab, a whale research station that has studied the northern resident orcas in these waters since 1970. British Columbia is seven hours behind UTC in summer and eight in winter.

Did You Know? Sea lions haul out partly because they cannot sleep properly at sea. Unlike seals, they need to fully rest their flippers, and a crowded haul-out is warmer than the water, so the pile of bodies is a heat-saving strategy rather than just a lack of space.

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