Last week I made a day trip to Año Nuevo State Park to view the spectacular elephant seal colonies. The weather was great, views incredible, and the elephant seals were truly a sight to behold. Pictures and television do not capture their beauty, grace, enormity, or deepness of their barks. What is truly remarkable is the story of this odd species. Ohlone artifacts, including animal bones, tell a story of what life was like for the Ohlone living or camping near Año Nuevo and their interactions with nature. According to my tour guide, bones of many different species were found buried among Ohlone campsites near the Ocean but none included elephant seal remains. One theory is that elephant seals preferred to come ashore and breed along islands just off the coast, as they still do in some places. The idea is that the for much of the elephant seal’s history in California, grizzly bears roamed freely along the coast and indeed grizzly bear bones are found along the coast and stories of the ferocious bears are legend in California. Grizzly bears are perhaps the only possible predator tough enough the challenge a full grown elephant seal and try and eat a cub. Now that grizzly bears are gone from California the elephant seals roam freely along our coasts. According to my tour guide, elephant seals only started to visit and breed at Año Nuevo State Park in the 1950s.

We are, however, truly lucky to be able to see wild elephant seals as hunting nearly drove them to extinction. Valued for their blubber (there’s a lot) that makes oil, the elephant seals were hunted throughout the Pacific Ocean in the 1800s. According to the California State Parks, “By 1892, only 50 to 100 individuals were left.”. In 1922 Mexico led the way of protecting elephant seals from hunting and the United States would soon follow. Thanks to the end of elephant seal hunting and the protection of the parts of the California coast (Año Nuevo State Park was once almost turned into a resort/golf course) the elephant seals numbers have increased – perhaps to their historical limit. President Obama has increased the amount of the California coast protected as a national monument and is proposing new protections for Arctic wildlife refuge. Elephant seals are merely a representation of the many species – animal and plant – threatened to the brink of extinction by human activity.