The Steller sea lion population in the western Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands has declined by approximately 80 % from the late 1970s to the late 1990s (from 282,000 animals to approximately 46,000 – 58,000) and was listed as “endangered” under the U.S Endangered Species Act in 1997. The trend for the eastern population on the other hand has been the reverse and has slowly increased since the 1980s and is listed as “threatened”.