Nonprofit helps to buoy Newport’s local sea lions—and bayfront commerce

written by James Sinks | photography by Visit Newport

You can hear them before you see them.

Nobody is quite sure what they’re talking about, but pretty much everybody is able to find the source of the ruckus along the historic waterfront in Newport: a lazy scrum of sea lions basking and jockeying for space on dedicated floating platforms just off Port Dock One in Yaquina Bay.

The barking fellas are one of the region’s more popular tourist attractions, sometimes drawing hundreds of people hourly to laugh and watch the action and wonder just how big a California sea lion can get (really big, like more than 1,000 pounds).

The popular and free-to-visit pinniped posse also translates into customers for nearby businesses and eateries. So when a massive winter storm careened into Newport in late 2022 and tore all of the connected floating platforms loose from their pilings—one ended up miles away up the bay—it wasn’t just a downer for the resident sea lions and disappointed tourists. It was an economic jolt to the bayfront.

Fortunately for the sea lions and their fans, several new platforms were in place by the following August, thanks to donors and the Newport Sea Lion Docks Foundation, with its two-decade-and-counting mission to install and maintain the docks as a tourist attraction.

As a result, the sea lions—all of them males, and among them two big boys who locals have named Ivan and Skiff—could plop back onto their familiar, crowd-pleasing roosts after returning from their annual monthlong summer sojourn to mate in the Channel Islands off the California coast.

“When we didn’t have the docks, tourists were really bummed. People come from across the world, and part of the reason to come to Newport is to see the sea lions,” said Janell Goplen, who leads the foundation, runs a boutique marketing and artificial intelligence consulting firm, and co-owns several Newport restaurants with her husband. One of those eateries is Clearwater Restaurant, which has indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the harbor and the sea lions below.

The usually sleepy nonprofit typically doesn’t have to deal with any crises, with a small board that raises money from visitors and local businesses and via grants from entities like the Oregon Community Foundation to pay for educational signage, a website with a live web cam and periodic replacement of the docks, said Goplen, who is the second director in its history.

But the 2022 dock disappearance pushed the nonprofit into quick action and into the spotlight, because there wasn’t much money in the bank after just replacing the docks the prior summer. It also caused some rethinking of the sort of docks to buy going forward, given the short lifespan of the predecessors and the increasingly temperamental weather on the coast.

Donations poured in, mostly in the $10 to $20 range, from thousands of people who wanted to help bring back their loud friends, who after losing their perches were hauling out of the water further away, on the breakwater and other spots.

Separately, the Discover Newport destination marketing organization also pitched in half of the replacement cost. The grand total came to about $80,000.

Wayne Patterson, executive director of Discover Newport, said the platforms are a feel-good signature Oregon destination and a positive community investment. He wouldn’t say if he was worried the displaced sea lions might have relocated to the nearby visitor information center lobby, without their local docks to congregate upon.

“We can certainly hear the sea lions bark from our offices,” he said. “The Sea Lion Docks are a fantastic tourist attraction for the bayfront.”

The 2023-installed versions are Oregon-made and fashioned of durable and buoyant plastic, rather than the previous style that incorporated concrete and foam, Goplen said. And the new ones have stayed put so far, while ably accommodating the thousands of pounds of pinnipeds that park and preen on them.

There wasn’t enough money to replace all of the platforms, she said, so fundraising is ongoing. In addition, the nonprofit would like to add more sea lion spaces as cashflow allows. “Our goal is to add more docks, and we have space for three more, extending out.”

Visitors to Port Dock One can use a QR code on the dock to pitch in a few bucks. While there, don’t forget to also say hello to Skiff and Ivan. Chances are, they’ll also be talking, about something.

To learn more about the Newport Sea Lions Docks Foundation or watch a live stream of the docks, visit www.newportsealions.com