Singing With Two-Ton Elephant Seals in Pescadero, California
Down along the rugged, windswept coast of southern San Mateo County, about 90 minutes from San Francisco, Año Nuevo State Reserve is the site of one of the great spectacles of nature. The beautiful beaches here host the largest breeding grounds for massive northern elephant seals. Every winter, thousands of these once-threatened marine mammals arrive to give birth and mate. Visitors can walk among the seals on two-hour tours with trained naturalists. You can see 5,000-pound males compete for harems of females and 300-pound seal pups being fed by their mothers. The males sing and honk to mark their territory, while pups yelp just for the fun of it. It can be a truly romantic spot for the right couple.
Down along the rugged, windswept coast of southern San Mateo County, about 90 minutes from San Francisco, Año Nuevo State Reserve is the site of one of the great spectacles of nature. The beautiful beaches here host the largest breeding grounds for massive northern elephant seals. Every winter, thousands of these once-threatened marine mammals arrive to give birth and mate. Visitors can walk among the seals on two-hour tours with trained naturalists. You can see 5,000-pound males compete for harems of females and 300-pound seal pups being fed by their mothers. The males sing and honk to mark their territory, while pups yelp just for the fun of it. It can be a truly romantic spot for the right couple.
From 10 yards away, a 16-foot male elephant seal looks like a giant, blubbery great white shark that's been beached and fitted with a rubber sausage for a nose. Get super close to these guttural-sounding behemoths, their lazy harems, and their high-pitched, barking "weaner" babies (who sound like monkeys from a few sand dunes away) on a gorgeous, windswept dunescape north of Santa Cruz, CA. The devoted docents at Año Nuevo State Park give 2-hour guided hikes during breeding season, which spans from December to March every year.
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