Being an artist of nature, I often wish I could get more up-close and personal with the critters I paint, especially the big ones. I did this with a Steller Sea Lion a few days ago, and it was a rather amazing experience I’d like to share. I smelled the recently deceased male before I saw him, upright on a rocky beach and just at the high tide mark. He didn’t appear to have suffered any external injuries, no bullet holes or prop cuts, so maybe he was just an old gentleman whose time had ended. I thought of my own mortality, so I went upwind and sat next to the bag of bones that was once a proud creature. I tried to imagine him corralling his harem and guarding against interlopers, feeding on salmon at night or taking a snooze on the Number 2 bell buoy off Port Townsend.

These are threatened animals, protected under the Endangered Species Act, and I found it thrilling to be sitting there and getting to know this 2000lb animal. I felt his nose whiskers, stiff and worn down from sensing his prey as he fed at night. I felt his course throat, a real lion’s mane, hairs that shielded him from fights with other males. I ran my fingers along his back where the hair tended to be softer and saw his front arms where the skin looked more like that of a bat’s, a big bat!

This seal, the largest of the eared seals, has independent rear flippers so it can walk very well on ground. Other seals have to scoot along on their forelegs, but this huge creature would have been very agile. He was a magnificent creature, an experience heightened by retelling the story here.

Larry Eifert paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.