The Greeting

A California sea lion swims straight at the lens through clear blue water off the Coronado Islands, a small group of rocky islands south of San Diego in Mexican waters that hold one of the most reliable sea lion colonies on the Pacific coast.

Sea lions are curious by nature. Young animals in particular will leave the colony to inspect a diver, circle once or twice, and come in close. This frame is that moment of approach: eyes forward, whiskers lit, the whole animal pointed at you.

It is a print for a room that needs life in it. Printed on HD metal the blues go luminous; on fine art paper the water softens and the animal sits in it like a drawing.

California sea lions are a conservation success story that is not finished. Hunted and culled into the early twentieth century, they recovered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and now number in the hundreds of thousands along the Pacific coast.

The pressures today are different: entanglement in fishing gear and plastic, warm-water years that push their prey offshore and leave pups starving on the beach, and toxic algal blooms that poison adults with domoic acid. Rescue centers on this coast fill up in bad years.

Our youth crews learn to read a sea lion colony, count animals and log what they see. It is the first real data many of them collect, and it is why a picture like this is part of a program, not just a wall.

Read about Citizen Science and our guide to ocean conservation in Southern California. Species guide: California Sea Lion.

• HD Metal · Printed onto white gloss aluminum, luminous and sharp; ships boxed, ready to hang. From $245.
• HD Acrylic · Printed behind crystal-clear acrylic for depth and color that glows; ships boxed, ready to hang. From $295.
• Fine Art Paper · Archival fine art paper, ships rolled in a tube for your own frame. From $145.
• Sizes · 12 × 18, 16 × 24, 20 × 30, 24 × 36 inches. Printed to order in the USA and shipped insured within the US.
• Where the money goes · a print is a purchase, not a donation, so there is no tax receipt. My Clean Ocean keeps the profit for its youth programs.