Seals as predictors of earthquakes?

This news item in early January caught my eye:

The sea lions of San Francisco are almost as famous as the city's cable cars or even the Golden Gate bridge, says the BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles.

Twenty years ago, for no apparent reason, the smelly, noisy animals took up residence in the docks at Pier 39.

Their numbers grew rapidly to about 1,700 animals, and they became a popular tourist attraction.

But then most of them disappeared.
....
One outlandish suggestion was that they were fleeing the bay because of an imminent earthquake, our correspondent says.

The seals were found off the coast of Oregon. But did they really sense the imminent earthquake on January 9?