March 1995
A youthful harem lies on the beach and soaks up the sun, competing for their suitor's attention. Each is in her sexual prime and wants to seduce him. He looks over at one of them, a gleam in his eye. Very slowly he makes his way over to her and approaches from behind, his whiskers tickling her neck. They wrestle in the sand as he grunts in a frenzy and has his way with her. Satisfied, he pushes her away, rolls over and falls asleep, spent.
The annual mating season for elephant seals has begun at Ano Nuevo State Beach. Watch them frolic in the sand, listen to their trumpeting, and if you are lucky you may even see male elephant seals in battle for the title of designated stud, as only a handful are singled out to mate with all the females. Thought to be extinct a century ago, elephant seals range in size from 6 to 18 feet, weigh from 1,000 to 6,000 pounds, and look something like long, wrinkled sausages.
Ano Nuevo is located on Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, just a 90-minute drive down the coast from San Francisco State University. Interested voyeurs must pay $4 for a guided walking tour (three miles round trip), and $4 for parking. While advance tickets are sold out through the end of March, you will have a good chance of joining an open walking tour and seeing the elephant seals in action if you show up on a weekday between 8 and 9 a.m. Or if you wait until April when the guided tours end, you can see the elephant seals on your ownÑmolting before your very eyesÑand save $4. For information call (800) 444-PARK.