Chasing the Elephant seals

It was a dark and stormy day..... sounds like a bad novel.

We hit the road again, this time to Pelican Point at Half Moon Bay on the pacific shore south of San Fransisco. It's a short three hour drive from home so it was a pretty easy and pleasant drive.

Wednesday morning six of us headed to Ano Nuevo state preserve to view the Elephant seals. The day was dreary but the company was great the the seals are amazing. The adventure started with a three quarter mile hike to a staging area

where we met our guide for the day. From there, volunteer docents take small groups on a mile and half walk over the dunes to view the Elephant seals.

Ano Nuevo is the winter home of some 1500 Elephant seals. Here they give birth to pups and mate. By the late 1800s there were less than 100 Elephant seals left in the world. They had been slaughtered for their blubber much as whales have been hunted. Today through conservation efforts there are more than 250,000 in existence.

Elephant seals litter the beach for as far as you can see. The females give birth and then nurse the pups for about a month. A pup will weigh about 30 pounds at birth and some will get as big as 400 pounds at the end of the month nursing period.The female doesn't eat during nursing and will loose up to 40% of her weight. After a month the female weans(just quits nursing) the pup and will mate in preparation for next years offspring.

The colony lives in a "Harem" society. If you're the alpha male life is good. If you aren't the big kahuna then you sit on the outside and look in as this adult male is doing. The Males littered the sand dunes and we walked up to them ( no closer than 25 feet). They are very docile and barely recognized our visit. Adult males will grow to 18 feet long and weigh as much as 5000 pounds. Pretty impressive guys!

The video below is a "first try" at adding a video clip. Not great but it gives you a different view of the beach and the residents.