The Northern Elephant Seal, Mirounga angustirostris, is an extraordinary marine mammal. It spends eight to ten months a year in the open ocean, diving 1000 to 5000 feet deep for periods of fifteen minutes to two hours, and migrating thousands of miles, twice a year, to its land based rookery for birthing, breeding, molting and rest. The Piedras Blancas rookery, on Highway 1 seven miles north of San Simeon on the California Central Coast, is home to about 17,000 animals. The area is open for viewing every day of the year and there is no admission fee or reservation required.
If there is something you want to know about elephant seals, or about other marine mammals that inhabit this area of the California coast, please ASK US. For current weather information at the rookery, click HERE. To know what is happening in the rookery at this time, click HERE.
Note the Google Translate box in the upper left corner of each web page. It provides for translation of the web pages into any of more than 50 languages. It is a machine translation and, as such, will in some cases be awkward or incorrect. For this we apologize.
| School visits or bus tours 805-924-1628 |
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The site is now including guest photographs in our Photo Album Section under E-Seals. We invite photographers interested in being included to click the ASK US link above and request inclusion. The webmaster reserves the rights of selection, sizing, and duration of the show.
Summer and the Molt – April to September
In late March, females who gave birth early in the birthing season and juveniles last on the beach in October or November begin to arrive for the molt season. Every seal, except for new of the year, return in summer to grow new skin and hair and shed the old. All mammals shed old skin and hair and grow new but land mammals do it continuously – always circulating blood just under the skin to nourish the new cells. The seals, and the other pinnipeds, however, do not grow new skin at sea because they keep the blood inside their blubber layer, well away from the skin and icy cold water. Instead they have evolved to come on shore where heat loss is greatly reduced. For elephant seals this is a month-long stay in the rookery. While in the process they look pretty shabby but by the end they have new steel gray and silver skin and beige hair. When you visit the rookery, ask a docent for the chance to examine a piece of the molted skin. The juveniles and females are in the rookery from late March to mid-June. Early May is the time of peak population in the rookery and the beaches can be very crowded. It is obvious that the seals like the crowding and they pile on top of each other. This is also the time when the juvenile males take the opportunity to play with each other, honing their fighting ability for life as an adult male. The sub-adult and adult males come to the rookery later in the summer, beginning in June and some present on the beach into September. Moving your cursor over the image will pause the slide show. |
Friends of the Elephant Seal PO Box 490 Cambria, CA 93428 Phone: (805) 924-1628 Fax: (805) 924-1629 |
Office / Visitor Center Plaza del Cavalier 250 San Simeon Ave. Suite 3B San Simeon, Ca 93452 Email: fes@elephantseal.org |
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Last edited March 30, 2012
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