Shore Sector

While the ocean is home to the largest biosphere of plants and animals on the planet, there is also a tremendous diversity of life at the shoreline, where the land meats the sea. Animals such as seals, sea lions, shorebirds and even penguins all utilize the sea shores as their homes and hunting grounds.

The most prominent display in our Shore sector are those highlighting the Australian Sea Lion. The Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea) is a species of sea lion that breeds only on the south coast of Australia. Today there are about 12,000 Australian Sea Lions following the introduction of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Act of 1972 which prohibited a harvest that began in earnest as soon as Europeans colonized the continent.