{"id":8387,"date":"2026-05-01T20:10:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/?p=8387"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:10:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:10:43","slug":"massive-sea-lion-chonkers-drawing-crowds-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/?p=8387","title":{"rendered":"Massive sea lion &#8216;Chonkers&#8217; drawing crowds in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><span class=\"story_dl\">April 30 (UPI) &#8212;<\/span> Crowds are flocking to San Francisco&#8217;s Pier 39 &#8212; including some from across the country &#8212; to catch a glimpse of a rare visitor to the city: a massive sea lion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Steller sea lion, dubbed Chonkers, has been seen lounging among the much smaller California sea lions on the docks in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Steller sea lions can grow up to 11 feet long and weigh as much as 2,500 pounds, making them about twice the size of California sea lions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;They&#8217;re so big because they dive deep and they swim in much colder waters than even here in San Francisco Bay,&#8221; Sheila Chandler, the Pier 39 harbor master, <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/abc7chicago.com\/post\/giant-steller-sea-lion-chonkers-draws-crowds-san-franciscos-pier-39-best-chance-go-see-viral-animal\/18995764\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:told KGO-TV;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">told KGO-TV<\/a>. &#8220;So they need all that blubber for sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She said Chonkers appears to be getting along well with his much smaller cousins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He&#8217;s so much bigger. He&#8217;s literally twice the size of the biggest California sea lion that you can see out there,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And he&#8217;s very mellow. It seems he&#8217;s not that vocal from what we can see in here. And he doesn&#8217;t have to go up against any of the others to prove who&#8217;s dominant. It&#8217;s sort of an implied &#8216;yes.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Visitors have been gathering at the pier every day in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Chonkers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I saw on the news about Chonkers in Atlanta, Georgia, and I came all the way to San Francisco to see him,&#8221; one visitor <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/sanfrancisco\/news\/chonkers-sea-lion-san-francisco-pier-39\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:told CBS San Francisco.;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">told CBS San Francisco.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 30 (UPI) &#8212; Crowds are flocking to San Francisco&#8217;s Pier 39 &#8212; including some from across the country &#8212; to catch a glimpse of a rare visitor to the city: a massive sea lion. The Steller sea lion, dubbed Chonkers, has been seen lounging among the much smaller California sea lions on the docks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[563,1779,296,7094,13370,13375,1330,889,13372,13377,13382,13371,13376,13381,1184,13380,6701,1249,1711,1379,2436,13374,2844,119,1274,2669,13373,67,66,13378,189,6700,6709,547,11185,1192,1270,13379,528,8467,459,7926],"class_list":["post-8387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pets-news","tag-among","tag-april","tag-california","tag-catch","tag-chonkers","tag-chonkers-drawing","tag-city","tag-country","tag-crowds","tag-crowds-san","tag-docks","tag-drawing","tag-drawing-crowds","tag-dubbed","tag-feet","tag-flocking","tag-francisco","tag-glimpse","tag-grow","tag-including","tag-lion","tag-lion-chonkers","tag-lions","tag-long","tag-lounging","tag-massive","tag-massive-sea","tag-pe-ts-fun","tag-pets-news","tag-pier","tag-rare","tag-san","tag-san-francisco","tag-sea","tag-sea-lion","tag-size","tag-smaller","tag-steller","tag-told","tag-visitor","tag-weeks","tag-weigh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pe-ts.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}