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Pier 39

California sea lions began hauling out on K-Dock at Pier 39 in September 1989 and never left. The Marine Mammal Center advised the marina to give the docks up rather than move them. Numbers swing with the fish and the season, peaking in winter — as many as 1,700 have been counted at once — and thinning in early summer when the males head south to breed.

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Quick answer

1Sea lions first began hauling out at Pier 39 in September 1989, before the October Loma Prieta earthquake

2As many as 1,700 have been reported at one time, during Thanksgiving week in 2009

3The Marine Mammal Center advised leaving the animals and monitors the population

Full transcript

The Squatters

In September 1989 a handful of California sea lions hauled themselves out of the bay onto K-Dock, a floating platform on the west side of Pier 39, and went to sleep in the sun. The story you will hear in every gift shop, that the Loma Prieta earthquake drove them here, is wrong by a month: the first animals arrived in early September, and the quake struck on October 17th. Within weeks there were well over a hundred on the floats, and the boat owners whose slips they had pinched were, by all accounts, furious. Marina staff called The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito and asked how to move them. After some study, the answer came back: do not. The sea lions had found herring, refuge from great white sharks, and a dock nobody could legally take from them. The boats moved out. The sea lions stayed. *Walk to the railing on the west side of the pier and look down at the floats. Count the heads.*

What They Are, Exactly

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The Argument Inside The Colony

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The Empty Months

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Why Here, Specifically

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The Dispute That Never Happened

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The Man Who Built The Pier

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The Carousel You Walked Past

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The View From The End

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What You Are Actually Looking At

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The Walk Back

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Deep-dive audio

1The Squatters0:56Free preview
2What They Are, Exactly0:55Unlock to listen
3The Argument Inside The Colony0:57Unlock to listen
4The Empty Months0:56Unlock to listen
5Why Here, Specifically0:55Unlock to listen
6The Dispute That Never Happened0:57Unlock to listen
7The Man Who Built The Pier0:53Unlock to listen
8The Carousel You Walked Past0:54Unlock to listen
9The View From The End0:54Unlock to listen
10What You Are Actually Looking At0:53Unlock to listen
11The Walk Back0:53Unlock to listen

The checkable facts

In September 1989 a handful of California sea lions hauled themselves out of the bay onto K-Dock, a floating platform on the west side of Pier 39, and went to sleep in the sun.

More photos of this stop

All from Wikimedia Commons, each credited to its photographer; tap any photo for the original and its full licence.

Laura-Del from San Francisco · CC BY 2.0

Tobias Kleinlercher / Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

Browse every photo of this place →

Open in maps

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What travelers say

Distilled from Google, TripAdvisor, Reddit and Chinese-language posts — every claim links to its source.

Ask locals where to eat on Pier 39 and they point you off the pier entirely.

Tip: Reviewers consistently recommend eating outside the tourist strip — walk five minutes to North Beach or the Wharf side streets for better value seafood.

TripAdvisor

The sea lions are the big draw — they aren't always on the same dock.

Tip: Sea lions move between docks; scan the whole west-side dock row before settling, and morning light plus fewer tour groups makes it the best viewing window.

TripAdvisor

"Pier 39 is where you will see the sea lions; both spots have touristy shops and street performers."

Tip: If you only have time for one wharf stop, choose Pier 39 for the sea lions and the two-story carousel; the main Wharf drag is mostly crab stands and shops.

After the guide

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Frequently asked

Why did the sea lions come to Pier 39?

Nobody knows for certain, and the popular earthquake explanation is backwards: the first animals hauled out in September 1989, weeks before Loma Prieta struck in October. What the docks offer is obvious enough — herring in the bay, a floating platform out of reach of great white sharks, and no competition once the boats left.

Why are the Pier 39 docks sometimes empty?

Because the population moves with the fish and the breeding season. Winter is the peak, when several hundred can pile onto the platforms and as many as 1,700 have been counted at once. In early summer most of the males head south to the Channel Islands, and the docks can look abandoned. Nothing is wrong.

Why are the Pier 39 sea lions so loud?

The barking is territorial argument, not conversation, and the colony is overwhelmingly male. The piling on top of each other is deliberate too: hauled-out sea lions conserve body heat by stacking, which is why a platform can look like one animal with forty heads.

Did the sea lions get moved off Pier 39?

No — the boats did. The marina asked The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito how to remove them, and the answer after study was to leave them alone and give up the docks. The berths were reassigned and K-Dock became theirs, which is why a working marina now has a wildlife viewing area in the middle of it.

What else is worth seeing at Pier 39?

Two things past the shops. The two-storey carousel on the upper level is hand-painted with San Francisco scenes. And the far end of the pier gives one of the best free views in the city: Alcatraz straight ahead, the Golden Gate to the left, the Bay Bridge to the right.

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