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Ano Nuevo Offers a Different Kind of Beach Party By Hugh Biggar
March 09, 2004

For guys looking for dates, the odds might seem good at Ano Nuevo, currently home to over 1,700 females and just 300 males. Of course, it would help if you were a 5,000 pound northern elephant seal alpha bull with 5-inch teeth. If not, you had better be prepared to stay at least 25 feet away from the elephants seals, which lie scattered on the beaches of this state reserve an hour south of San Francisco. Otherwise, the elephant seals can move as fast you can run, especially if they have a target in mind. From December to March, that target

is most likely to be a female elephant seal, as those months are the prime-breeding season for the animals. Once a year the elephant seals arrive on shore here to give birth, molt and mate. The Ano Nuevo State Reserve offers a rare opportunity to witness this natural spectacle-and to become acquainted with a species once on the brink of extinction-through guided walks out to the beaches.

Mel Benz, a reserve docent and naturalist, recently led a group of twelve on one of the walks. The mile and half hike followed a sandy trail curving along cliffs above the Pacific Ocean.

Benz stopped often to point out stray elephant seals stretched out among the ice plants and in rainwater puddles, looking more like driftwood or rocks than animals. The seals might have been easily missed otherwise, as they lay inert, conserving energy. This is crucial to the seals since they don't eat the entire time they are on land, which can last up to 60 days. Many of the scattered seals were pups growing into new silver coats needed to protect them from cold ocean waters, or learning how to swim in the puddles. In the background, short burst of noise that sounded like back-firing motors filled the air.

"Bull elephant seals are using their voice to establish dominance," Benz explained. If this animal equivalent of trash-talking does not work, the bulls then engage in fierce and bloody fights where their five-inch tusks come in handy.

Benz also stopped along the cliff to point toward mountains low on the horizon across a wide bay. "A Portuguese whaling station used to be over there," he said. "One hundred years ago they were almost extinct. We're lucky the elephant seals are here at all now."

According to the Ano Nuevo visitor center and reserve rangers, by the 1890s there were only 50-100 northern elephant seals left in the world. Their thick blubber was highly prized for oil. Most of the hundreds of thousands of elephant seals in the Pacific were soon slaughtered. However, a small colony survived off the coast of Baja California and from there the species was able to rebound. The Mexican government helped by giving them protected status in 1922. The United States did the same soon after.

"The first elephant seal was spotted at Ano Nuevo in 1922," Benz said, while leading the group across marbled sand often worn smooth in places by seal tracks. "The first pup was born here in 1961."

The colony has grown from there. Today there are over 160,000 northern elephant seals in the world. This is an encouraging sign of species recovery at a time when the outlook for many of the world's endangered species is dire. According to a recent scientific report, a million of the world's species could be extinct as soon as 2050.

Benz then led the group off the trail and up a small rise overlooking a beach thick with elephant seals. Below, seals flipped sand on themselves to keep cool from the warm sun. Females huddled in harems, barking to their pups-a crucial means of bonding in case the mothers and pups to get separated in the pack or in the surf. At the same time, big bulls with the long noses that gives the animals their name, undulated jello-like, barking and ready to do battle with other males lurking hopefully on the edges of the harems.

"They really are incredible animals," Benz said. The group nodded agreement and watched quietly, before heading reluctantly back to the visitor's center.

Contact Hugh Biggar at hbiggar@stanford.edu.

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