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Community -> YiY Hiking
Group -> Ano Nuevo
Hike
Ano Nuevo Hike Jan '04
A Day At Ano Nuevo by Eleanor Pearson
After
an inauspicious start to the day (how does one get a sleepy husband-person
up at six AM on a Sunday to go watch elephant seals? - ANSWER: One doesn't.)
I set off on foot to meet up with the car pool convoy outside of YIY.
I'll be brief and try to cut straight to the seal stars of this story.
The journey out to Ano Nuevo was relatively uneventful. We did, however,
stop at a recent,car accident site on a bend along the road to Half
Moon Bay to see if we could help. No-one was injured, aside from minor
glass cuts, amazing really, as the car was completely upturned, the front
driver and passenger area crushed. As it turned out another driver had
already checked out the site before us and had called for help and stood
vigil just before the bend in the road, waving warning to oncoming vehicles.
After witnessing such trauma so early in the day, we were ready for the
treat Mother Nature had in store for us at Ano Nuevo (Ano Nuevo - meaning "New
Year" in Spanish).
In case you wish to visit Ano Nuevo, in order to check
out the elephant seals in person, you should know that admission to the
national park is strictly limited to guided tour groups, and one needs
to book ahead of time, or you may need to wait a few hours to get into
one. Our guide was a volunteer docent called Rob Wamsab, who skillfully
led us between potentially competing male (bull) elephant seals. Apparently,
the danger here is not that the seals are aggressive towards humans,
but rather that they hold people in complete disdain, and would not be
in the least bit put out by having to squash one or two on the way to
a good fight with other bulls.
the seals - courtesy of Lori
Just by the way, these creatures are big
- adult males are big enough to pass through the ring of great white
sharks that patrol waters a quarter mile off the coast, relatively undisturbed.
Their size means in the past they had only three natural enemies: Great
White Sharks, Orcas, and us, of course. Ironically, it was the elephant
seal's total lack of fear of humans that probably led to its being hunted
almost to extinction . The pinniped ("Winged Feet") used to be pursued
for the oil derived from its blubber. It is now protected.
A few
interesting facts about the female: Female elephant seals (cows) only
have one pup at a time. If a cow is sighted with two something is wrong,
most likely the mother is young and inexperienced, and both pups will
die. Female elephant seals can recognise the sound of their individual
pup, but not the other way around (this is a recent discovery
by researchers). Cows can delay the gestation process for up to three
months after insemination. Usually they will allow themselves to become
impregnated when there is ample food supply at sea. And - (this next
fact applies to both male and female elephant seals) throughout the breeding
season (on land) neither will eat nor drink. Another quirky, but somehow
apt fact to know about the seals: the different sexes migrate to different
parts of the world. The males go to Alaska, since they are bigger, and
the passage there involves passing pods of Orcas. The females are smarter,
they head to Hawaii.
In any case this and more was divulged to our party
of 18 (or was it 19?) as we picked our way through the dunes to the beach.
An over-conscientious park ranger waved to us from time to time, concerned
that we may be venturing a little too close to those pesky competitive
alpha males. Did I mention it was an "Alpha Society", that is incredibly
sexist, but it seems to work for them. One couldn't help feeling sympathy
for the losing male being chased further into the waves, chest bloody
and bashed...but there was some consolation, "Losers' Beach" was just
around the corner, and last season two new harems were found established
there.
Cheers, EP
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