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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 15,000 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.
NEW - 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.
Come Join the Party at
NEW - A set of pictures of the north beach throughout the year
| 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.
Birthing, Battles, Breeding and the Start of a New Adventure In December the older males, sub-adult and adult, arrive. They challenge each other for dominance over a section of the beach through a combination of fighting and, more often, intimidation. Beginning in mid-month the pregnant females arrive and the first birth occurs not long before Christmas, the rate of births peaking in mid-January with approximately two births per hour on the beaches adjacent to the parking lot. With the births come the gulls eager for the after birth. The pups are black, noisy and active with a strong interest in the milk from their mother that will take them from approximately 70 pounds at birth to over 300 pounds in four weeks. The males continue to battle because with dominance comes breeding rights to the females in the dominated area. Breeding takes place near the end of the nursing period and then the mother. The mothers, newly pregnant, leave for the open ocean and the weaned pups are on their own. By early March they own the beach with a occasional exhausted and slender adult male resting up before his trip to the Aleutians. The "weaners" are attractive and curious and, no longer hassled by the protective mothers, go out into the shallow protected waters among the rocks off shore and build their swimming skills and muscles before they too start their marine life. These photos of seals on the beach during this period. 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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