Alaska SeaLife Center announces the pregnancy of its Stellar sea lion

The Alaska SeaLife Center announced Thursday the pregnancy of Mara, its 17-year-old Stellar sea lion.

ASLC's ten-year-old male, Pilot, is the father.

Director of Animal Health and lead veterinarian Dr. Carrie Goertz says she expects Mara to be due in the spring.

"Estimating a delivery date is imprecise in any species, but in Stellar sea lions it is even harder since we've only tracked a few pregnancies," Goertz said in a statement released by the center. "Neverthless, I expect Mara to give birth earlier than all of our other births since I was able to detect the developing pup about a month before other cases."

Stellar sea lions both in human care and in the wild usually give birth in early summer.

In the history of the ASLC, there have been four other successful Stellar sea lion births. There were all from another female sea lion named Eden, who is now at the Mystic Aquarium.