The folks
at San Francisco’s Pier 39 fondly
remember Amy Lim as the gregarious and intelligent owner
of SFALS (San Francisco Adores Lion Seals) the most
popular store on the pier and a budding nationwide brand,
despite the fact that sea lions are not seals.
Amy moved from
Austin only ten months after becoming smitten with the California
sea lions on a business trip. She couldn’t get
the creatures out of her mind. They were more than just adorable...
they had become her “spirit animal.”
Every day,
she ate her lunch in the same spot at the corner of
the pier, watching her "peeps" bask in the sun and
bark hellos to her and to each other.
Amy had names
for all of them and would regale tourists with funny stories about each of
them, encouraging the visitors to stop by
the store and “ORT ORT” for a
free SFALS sticker.
Some people say
that the more time Amy spent with the Sea Lions, the more
and more she began to resemble them. She ran up and down the boardwalk with her
feet splayed, barked to them in the most realistic way, and had a seemingly
endless appetite.
Her fellow
shop owners said that Amy’s obsession was borderline
unhealthy. She stopped doing activities with her friends after work. She
started eating only sushi and later switched to eating only
whole, raw fish that she bought from the local vendors.
Visitors were
forbidden to feed the animals, but
sometimes Amy couldn’t help herself, sneaking back to
the pier under the cover of darkness and throwing fish onto
the docks. She tried to disguise herself in a black hoodie, but from
the Pier 39 live cam, it was obvious who it was.
She told the other
workers, “They love me as much as I love them,” which is why, when
she hopped the fence to feed them by hand one night, no one
was surprised. And no one was surprised when the 800
lb creatures attacked her and the basket of fish she
brought. Amy was crushed in the onslaught, but even more
disconcerting, she was ripped apart and eaten by
the sea lions that didn’t get fish.
The alert went out
when Amy's employee Geoffrey arrived at an
unopened SFALS store. Immediately, everyone thought to check the
footage from the night before, and the bloodbath unfolded on the monitor.
There was a change
in the air. The business owners along the Wharf
mourned Amy’s passing and started a small shrine outside
her store and in the corner where
she ate her lunch every day. The sea lions were
also agitated, now with a taste for meat and blood, they began to nip at each
other, eventually satisfying their cravings by preying on the weakest.
From there, the
infighting began in earnest and reached international attention.
The pier was packed with onlookers and live cam traffic
soared into the millions watching the giant mammals feast on each other until
they were gorged.
The coast guard
and animal rescue societies intervened, and ushered
the animals out of the area, closing it off. But the
remaining seals took their battle to nearby Alcatraz Island.
Tour companies and private boats raised their rates tenfold to accommodate the
huge demand for onsite viewing of the sea lion battles.
However, within two
weeks, only one Sea Lion remained. The locals named
him Duke, after the colossal poops he left on the banks of
the island. It was reported, possibly a rumor, that one
of Amy Lim’s Birkenstocks was found sticking out of the side of one
pile. Maybe not so coincidentally, Birkenstock shares went up 25% that week.
Duke died
later that year in an epic clash with a 20-foot great white, but that’s a story
for another time.