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Description
Photographed at The Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery

Just north of Hearst Castle, the Piedras Blancas rookery is a vital breeding ground for these gigantic animals.

Elephant seals are one of California's most unique creatures.

In December the older males, sub-adult and adult, arrive. They challenge each other for dominance over a section of the beach through a combination of fighting and, more often, intimidation. Beginning in mid-month the pregnant females arrive and the first birth occurs not long before Christmas, the rate of births peaking in mid-January with approximately two births per hour on the beaches adjacent to the parking lot.

With the births come the gulls eager for the after birth. The pups are black, noisy and active with a strong interest in the milk from their mother that will take them from approximately 70 pounds at birth to over 300 pounds in four weeks. The males continue to battle because with dominance comes breeding rights to the females in the dominated area. Breeding takes place near the end of the nursing period and then the mother.

The mothers, newly pregnant, leave for the open ocean and the weaned pups are on their own. By early March they own the beach with a occasional exhausted and slender adult male resting up before his trip to the Aleutians. The "weaners" are attractive and curious and, no longer hassled by the protective mothers, go out into the shallow protected waters among the rocks off shore and build their swimming skills and muscles before they too start their marine life.

Description
Photographed at The Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery

Just north of Hearst Castle, the Piedras Blancas rookery is a vital breeding ground for these gigantic animals.

Elephant seals are one of California's most unique creatures.

In December the older males, sub-adult and adult, arrive. They challenge each other for dominance over a section of the beach through a combination of fighting and, more often, intimidation. Beginning in mid-month the pregnant females arrive and the first birth occurs not long before Christmas, the rate of births peaking in mid-January with approximately two births per hour on the beaches adjacent to the parking lot.

With the births come the gulls eager for the after birth. The pups are black, noisy and active with a strong interest in the milk from their mother that will take them from approximately 70 pounds at birth to over 300 pounds in four weeks. The males continue to battle because with dominance comes breeding rights to the females in the dominated area. Breeding takes place near the end of the nursing period and then the mother.

The mothers, newly pregnant, leave for the open ocean and the weaned pups are on their own. By early March they own the beach with a occasional exhausted and slender adult male resting up before his trip to the Aleutians. The "weaners" are attractive and curious and, no longer hassled by the protective mothers, go out into the shallow protected waters among the rocks off shore and build their swimming skills and muscles before they too start their marine life.