Elephant seals, nature’s heavyweights, haul out along the California coastline

(18 Jan 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Año Nuevo State Park, California - 16 January 2026
1. Various elephant seals haul out of the ocean to the beach
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park guide:
"So these are elephant seals, and it's pupping season right now, which will go from the middle of December through the end of March. And the males have the big proboscis. They've got the big noses."
3. Male elephant seal napping
4. Docent talking to visitors during tour
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park:
"Male elephant seals have the highest level of testosterone of any mammal. So they want to mate, fight, eat, press repeat."
6. Various male elephant seals going after females
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park:
"So most elephant seals come back to the same beach where they were born. They don't all, but most of them do. And we have about 10,000 elephant seals that come to Año Nuevo."
8. Various elephant seals fight and bite
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park:
"Three different times we thought they were extinct, and then the third time was there were about 30 to 60 in the island of Guadalupe, off of Mexico. And at that point, the president of Mexico decided to protect them. And he called in the militia. And so you could not kill them anymore."
10. Large group of elephant seals on the beach
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park:
"There are now about 250,000. There is a genetic bottleneck because they're all coming from that same 30 to 60, but so far they're doing really well and we haven't had any problems."
12. Visitors take photos of the elephant seals
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Carrie Kahn, visitor from Berkeley:
"It's awe-inspiring. And you just wonder, how do they move from point A to point B? They look like they'd be so slow. But they're like quick and big, and they're like honking and making noises."
14. A group of elephant seals bark and growl loudly
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Laura Stern, Docent, Año Nuevo State Park:
"You're not at a museum. You're not in an aquarium. You are right here watching them live doing what they do."
16. Elephant seal and pup
17. Various of young female elephant seal looks at visitors
STORYLINE:
Wildlife watchers are getting a front-row seat this winter at California’s Año Nuevo State Park, where the annual elephant seal breeding season is now in full swing.

Each winter, from mid-December through March, thousands of northern elephant seals haul themselves up onto the sandy beaches on the San Mateo County coast to breed, give birth and compete for mates.

Adult bulls, the largest seals on the planet, can reach 14 to 16 feet (between 4 and almost 5 metres) in length and weigh up to 2½ tons, making them a truly imposing sight as they battle for dominance and control of harems of females.

The northern elephant seal’s presence here today is a conservation success story.

In the 1800s, they were hunted nearly to extinction for their oil-rich blubber.

By the 1890s, fewer than 100 individuals remained in a tiny colony off Guadalupe Island in Baja California.

Recognizing the crisis, the Mexican government extended legal protection to the species in the early 1920s, followed shortly by protection in the United States.

With these safeguards in place, the elephant seal population rebounded dramatically.

Today, more than 250,000 northern elephant seals roam the Pacific, and Año Nuevo hosts one of the largest mainland breeding rookeries on the West Coast.





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