Driving along spectacular Highway 1 past Morro Bay, Cayucos and pine-scented Cambria, one arrives at the exciting six-mile-long elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas.
My spouse and I had driven through before on Highway 1 and turned up to Hearst Castle without taking notice of these enormous marine mammals. The biggest alpha males can weigh 5,000 pounds and reach up to 16 feet. After some research, I learned that one reason for this lack of memory is because the rookery wasn’t in existence here before 1990.
The striking site has a very long and accommodating boardwalk for human viewing, and visitors do stand, just staring, astounded at hundreds of the more than 25,000 elephant seals hanging out at the beach rookery (seal numbers fluctuate wildy, as do the tourist viewer numbers).
The northern elephant seal (M. angustirostris) had been hunted almost to extinction for its oil, but after petroleum extraction and production took off around 1900 their numbers rebounded, and they are not considered a threatened species today. Six miles is a lot of beach, but throngs of humans avidly watched the inert seals at the largest free elephant seal rookery in the world. Everyone just knows: This is not at all a zoo-type experience, and there is little human talking.
Standing with all the tourists and their cameras at the end of October, the onlookers displayed palpable emotion and empathy, and many of the humans weren’t from California. License plates included cars from all over the United States, and many rental cars appeared to be driven by adventurous Europeans and Asians here to see these captivating creatures.
The seals did not seem to do much while we observed them. They simply moved about a bit, scratched, tossed sand on their own backs, and made extreme flatulence and defecation noises that filled the air with a raw and nasty stench.
These are mostly males we’re seeing: the smaller, sycophantic “betas,” resting up and jousting while awaiting the arrival of the dominant “alphas” in November and early December. The pregnant female seals, who generally pour in after mid-December, pile onto the various beaches and seem to select the beach they like, rather than because of any special attractiveness in a given “alpha” male. Pups emerge in January, weighing 60 to 300 pounds, and wean after just four weeks. In the fourth week, the mother goes into estrus, mates several times, then abruptly abandons her pups and heads out to sea — family life is now over.
While we saw hundreds of the elephant seals at the end of October, almost never swimming, there will be many thousands more on the extended strand of the rocky and scenic rookery in January and February. The entire 25,000 are never present at the same time.
The beaches below the wooden boardwalk appeal deeply to humans as well as to our fellow mammals, those mammoth seals. They share the sloping strand with many other creatures in the intertidal zone as well as myriad shorebirds.
One experiences awe in realizing that the Piedras Blancas rookery seven miles past San Simeon itself is the only elephant seal rookery in the world that is free, easily accessible and always open to the public (no reservations are needed).
When you look around on the boardwalk, replete with equally entranced other humans from all over, you also realize you stand in a California state park looking out onto the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. This vast expanse extends from north almost to the city of Monterey itself and includes Point Lobos, Big Sur and enchanting Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
Elephant seals are very large mammals, and they enjoy a complex social life that fascinates the world’s apex predator species — the ever-curious humans. On the warm sand, there were concentric groupings of the seals, often the largest alpha male near the center and controlling things, and then the hierarchy radiates out and “down” in status. Were the gang wannabes out on the edge? Frequently we would see a small colony with a couple of pretty small, singleton elephant seals nearby, but not really close. No one threw sand over them and they had less group protection (e.g. vs. dogs). It’s likely they hadn’t yet earned their way into the team’s social ranking system.
While they may not possess the extremely nuanced and exact social systems scientists have detailed in orcas (killer whales), elephant seals showed in their constant jockeying, snorting and flopping about that they lived in a complex group hierarchy — there are superiors, inferiors and so on.
Carl Safina has shown research into the amazing orcas, including that they are essentially matriarchal, and that some of the male offspring stick to their moms for life, and without any shame! (See 4.1.1.)
The next time another human edges you out of a parking spot, or a higher-up orders you around, remember that many of us social mammals have highly elaborate social schemes and modes of communication. These species include bonobos, gorillas and elephants, but also orcas and elephant seals.
While there are plenty of touristy motels along trendy Moonstone Beach very close to trippy Cambria with its own small hotels, it’s much cheaper and more invigorating to tent-camp outdoors beside your car in one of the San Simeon State Park campgrounds. I believe children do enjoy the outside more, that outdoor childhood experiences remain a crucial factor in early development and that some hotdogs grilled over an open fire make for memorable meals with the sea in the background. Parents: There’s also Hearst Castle nearby, and you can always drive or bike back down to Cambria with the wineries and good restaurants.
There are two tent campgrounds near the rookery: San Simeon Creek Campground (115 sites) and Washburn Primitive Campground (68 hilltop campsites). Reservations are needed between mid-March and September. Click here for more information.
4-1-1
» Driving: Drive 95 miles north on Highway 101 to San Luis Obispo. Take Highway 1 to Morro Bay, then continue 42 miles up the coast past Cayucos and Cambria to the Hearst Castle turnoff. The elephant seal rookery is 4.4 miles past Hearst Castle. Total: 141 miles (perhaps three hours or less). This is quite long for a day trip, so car-camp with the kids, enjoy great food outdoors and view the elephant seals.
» Click here for more information about elephant seals.
» Book: Carl Safina, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (2016) on orcas and their social organization.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity, and has written extensively about the local backcountry. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
