Elephant seal at Highway 37 near San Pablo Bay sedated, captured for relocation

A wayward elephant seal that had been attempting to cross Highway 37 near San Pablo Bay since Monday afternoon was sedated Tuesday by wildlife officials, who found the animal to be pregnant and announced plans to relocate her to an elephant seal colony along the Marin County coast.

The 900-pound animal, believed to have arrived in the area after taking a wrong turn, was tranquilized in a field near the intersection with Highway 121 and loaded onto a truck where she underwent a medical evaluation.

Veterinarians did blood checks, conducted an ultrasound and discovered she was with pup, said Giancarlo Rulli, spokesman for the Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center.

“We don’t know how far along she is, although December and January are the prime months when elephant seals return to breed on the beaches,” Rulli said.

The animal was to be immediately transported to Point Reyes National Seashore at Chimney Rock, where there is an established elephant seal colony, Rulli said. Officials believe the elephant seal may have been heading there when it became disoriented and wound up in San Pablo Bay.

The seal was first spotted Monday trying to cross busy Highway 37. The spectacle jammed traffic and kept CHP officers busy trying to keep the massive animal from being hit. By nightfall, she had come to rest on a mudflat exposed at low tide.

CHP officers checked on the animal regularly all night, making sure she hadn’t gotten into the roadway.

When dawn came Tuesday and the tide returned, the seal was spotted swimming along the bay’s edge near the highway, looking like she was surveying the shoreline for a route up and onto the road.

There is no shoulder between the highway and the drop-off into the water, and officials feared she would get back onto the busy highway.

“Earlier she tried to make a little break for it, unsuccessfully,” CHP Officer Andrew Barclay said.

Later Tuesday morning, two marine mammal rescuers in a kayak took advantage of the outgoing tide to paddle along behind the seal and nudge her along the right course, Rulli said. The effort initially looked promising.

“They were trying to move her out. She’d go out a little ways, then she wanted to go back. She’s a 900-pound elephant seal versus a little kayak. The kayak doesn’t win,” Barclay said. “They’ve abandoned that.”

By Tuesday afternoon, the elephant seal had swum under the highway and was napping on a mudflat about 50 feet offshore, watched by a handful of media types, wildlife photographers, CHP officers and Marine Mammal Center workers who were gathered in a parking lot off the highway.

The only actual activity was the clogged traffic on the highway as news of the animal rescue had drivers stopping for a look.

“They’re stopping in the lane and trying to take pictures. I’ve been waving them on, trying to get traffic flowing, telling them to move on,” Barclay said. “We’ve been yelled at, cursed at.”

At some point Tuesday, wildlife experts decided on a plan to sedate the animal and relocate it.

Barclay said a marine mammal worker stuck the elephant seal with a tranquilizer mounted on the end of a pole. It took about 10 minutes for the seal to lose consciousness, he said.

Then, at least a dozen workers placed the seal on a tarp and carried her to a truck for medical checks, he said.

She was determined to be in good condition, Rulli said.

He said it was still unknown why the seal insisted on crossing the highway. It was believed the animal was lost.

“We think it made a wrong turn heading up the coast,” he said.

While officials hadn’t issued a nickname for the animal, some media reports dubbed her “Tolay,” in reference to nearby Tolay Creek.

Staff Writer Paul Payne contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rossmannreport.