Monday, May 28, 2012

Friends of Elephant Seals


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What
  • Rookery for thousands of elephant seals 

More Info
  • Free parking and free admission
  • No restrooms 

After spending a few hours in Hearst Castle, while driving north on CA-1, we noticed a signboard that read “Friends of Elephant Seal”. I was skeptical about finding any elephant seals during this time of the year, but as we noticed people cluttered there, we thought there might be just one or two seals. With no expectation at all we drove inside the parking lot.

Thousands of Elephant Seals

And whoa! Thousands of seals were basking on the beach sands. Apparently that was the molting season for these sea animals. There is a 0.5 mile trail that takes you along the beach, but we could see thousands of seals right from a vantage point in the parking lot itself.

As the name sounds, these seals were humungous and it was fun watching these seals swing their flippers to splash sand on to their bodies. This helps in keeping these cold blooded animals warm.

Close up picture of an Elephant Seal

One cannot walk down to the beach to touch the seals; but you can get a pretty close up view from the trail itself.

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2 comments:

  1. hey Anu, looks like you are up to some great outdoors! Thanks for blogging, good job :)

    ReplyDelete