I'm new so apologise if this has been covered. I know the Giant Otters, which are very cool, now occupy the Sealion Pool but what happened to the Sealions and are there plans for Chester to get anymore?
The Sealions left the collection as they were having welfare problems with the Sealions because they were being kept in fresh water,as a result the zoo decided to re-house the animals to collections that did have salt water pools.Also at the same time the species is not endangered in the wild so isn`t a priority species to be breed in captivity.As for plans for the zoo getting Sealions back the best answer i can give is not in the near future.
On the topic of names, I'd be interested to know the about Sealions that have been at the zoo from 2006-2010 - because the group number declined significantly in a short space in time about 18 months ago, didn't it - I think the three that left earlier this year were Fernandez, Sophia and Lara, and Hella moved on last year, but what happened to Rio (I think it was) and Sophia's mum?