The Northern Elephant Seal: Recovery of a Species

“…thousands of the animals, in past years, gathered upon the shores of the islands contiguous to the coast, as well as about the pebbly or sandy beaches of the peninsula, affording full cargoes to the oil- ships, yet their numbers were but few, when compared with the multitudes which once inhabited the remote, desolate islands, or places on the main…”
Charles M. Scammon
The Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of North America, 1872

 Much has changed over the past century and a half in the way that the story of natural history is told. In the late 19th century, Charles M. Scammon was one of the most prominent natural historians to study marine mammals. He was also a hunter of marine mammals. He wrote extensively about whales, seals, and sea lions, describing in depth their appearance, measurements, sources of food, and mating habits. He also described in vivid detail the methods in which they were hunted, slaughtered, and processed for oil from their blubber. Scammon recognized that the elephant seal population was being decimated, but did nothing to advocate for a moratorium on the slaughter. This is a story of how our attitudes toward wildlife conservation have evolved in the ensuing decades.

The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is a singularly unique creature, the result of millions of years of evolutionary adaptation. Capable of diving to depths of more than a mile below the ocean surface, able to hold its breath for up to two hours, and making one the longest annual migrations of any animal in the world, the elephant seal is a marvel of the animal kingdom.

The northern elephant seal can be found along the Pacific coast, from Baja California up to Vancouver Island.  The southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), which can attain a size twice as large as its northern cousin, is found throughout the southern hemisphere, with large populations on South Georgia Island, the Valdez Peninsula of Argentina, and around the shores of Antarctica.

The scientific, or binomial, name for elephant seals reveals much about the animal. The generic name Mirounga is an Australian Aboriginal word for elephant seal. The northern elephant seal has the specific name angustirostris, which means “narrow snout” in Latin. Its nose does not look particularly narrow, but this designation comes from a comparison with the southern elephant seal. The specific name for the southern elephant seal is leonina, or “lion-like” in Latin, which comes from the perception of early European hunters that the animal roared like a lion.

Throughout the 19th century, the elephant seal was hunted extensively for the fine oil that could be rendered from its blubber. As the pace of the Industrial Revolution quickened in the 1830s and 1840s, the demand for oil grew exponentially. At the same time, whale populations were in decline due to overhunting and oil extracted from whale blubber became more expensive. New sources of oil were sought, and the superior quality oil from elephant seals was highly valued because it could be used for everything from household lighting to industrial fuel and lubrication.

This new source of oil was much easier and cheaper to get too, since thousands of elephant seals could be slaughtered while hauled up on a beach. One bull elephant seal could produce 25 gallons of oil on average. Scammon writes that a “fat bull, taken at Santa Barbara Island, by the brig Mary Helen, in 1852, was eighteen feet long, and yielded two hundred and ten gallons of oil.”

Commercial hunting of elephant seals began in 1846, and so many animals were taken in the first 15 years that it soon became much more difficult to make a profit. The species was almost wiped out and by 1892, it was believed that northern elephant seals were extinct. Around this time, small numbers of elephant seals were found on the islands of Guadalupe and Cedros, off the west coast of Baja California. They were killed as soon as they were found.

It is astonishing to look back at the conservation ethic of those times. The seal hunters did not have enough foresight and restraint to preserve their own livelihoods and moderate the number of animals they killed. When there were no longer enough seals to hunt profitably, the biggest threat to elephant seals became collectors from museums. American zoologists Charles Haskins Townsend and A. W. Anthony conducted an expedition to Guadalupe Island in 1892, where he found eight elephant seals.

"Some of these elephant seals were secured" Townsend wrote euphemistically. The expedition killed seven of them and hauled them off to the Smithsonian. Anthony rationalized the killings, writing "This action was considered justifiable at the time, as the species was considered doomed to extinction by way of the sealer's trypot [a large pot used to remove and render the oil from blubber obtained from seals] and few if any specimens were to be found in the museums of North America."

The near eradication of the elephant seal as a species produced what is known as a “population bottleneck.” All of the northern elephant seals in existence today are descendants of the few dozen individuals that remained at the end of the 19th century. This leaves them extremely vulnerable to infections and diseases, because they do not have enough diversity in their genetic makeup to fight off threats to the immune system.

When a joint Mexican-American expedition to Guadalupe Island found 262 elephant seals in 1922, the Mexican government decided to act to protect what remained of the species. They passed legislation that created a biological reserve on Guadalupe Island and even went so far as to station a small garrison of troops on the island to protect the animals. A crude sign was posted, warning potential poachers in broken English “Prohibit by law kill or capture elephant sea.”

The protection paid off and the elephant seal population began to slowly recover. The seals soon moved into U.S. waters, prompting the American government shortly thereafter to pass its own legislation to protect them. Over the next few decades, elephant seals began to reclaim their historical territory, moving northward into the Channel Islands and beyond. They were first seen at San Miguel Island in 1925 and had established a breeding colony there by the 1940s, hauling out at Point Bennett. By 1957, their population had recovered to 13,000 animals.

Moving further north, elephant seals were spotted at Año Nuevo Island in 1955 and the first pup was born there in 1961. By the early 1970s, there were approximately 6,000 seals at Año Nuevo Island and by 1975 they had moved to the mainland. The first elephant seal pup birth on the mainland of California took place that year at Año Nuevo, and by 1978 there were 86 pups born there.

As the rookery at Año Nuevo grew, elephant seals continued their movement northward and began to appear at the Farallon Islands and the Point Reyes headlands. The first breeding pair was discovered at Point Reyes in 1981, near Chimney Rock. Today there are an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 elephant seals at Point Reyes, from the southern end of Drakes Beach and out to the headlands of Chimney Rock.

The establishment of the rookery at Piedras Blancas, about 30 miles north of Morro Bay on the Central Coast, began to take place in 1990.  This site is unusual because it is in no way remote, in fact the beaches are right next to the high speed traffic of Highway 1. It has since become the largest rookery on the California mainland, with 5,000 pups born there in 2013. The site, part of Hearst San Simeon State Park, provides an extraordinary close-up view of the animals, where visitors can watch births taking place, bulls fighting it out for dominance, and the mating rituals that follow. Docents from Friends of the Elephant Seal are on hand along the boardwalk to explain to visitors all that is taking place on the beach below. They also have an “EsealCam,” allowing the action to be viewed online.

Elephant seals are protected today under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which outlaws hunting, killing, capture, and harassment of elephant seals or other marine mammals. The law was passed in 1972 to ensure that “population stocks should not be permitted to diminish beyond the point at which they cease to be a significant functioning element in the ecosystem of which they are a part, and, consistent with this major objective, they should not be permitted to diminish below their optimum sustainable population.” Recognizing that elephant seals have significant habitat in both Mexico and the United States, the law required the Secretary of the Interior to “initiate negotiations as soon as possible for the development of bilateral or multinational agreements with other nations for the protection and conservation of all marine mammals covered by this Act.”

The northern elephant seal has reclaimed much of its historic territory and now has a population of approximately 160,000, increasing by more than 6% annually. The recovery of elephant seal populations has coincided with a substantial increase in the human population of California, resulting in potential for conflict. The 38 million people of this state are incredibly lucky to live in close proximity to one of the greatest wildlife shows on Earth. But problems arise as the beaches of California become more popular with both humans and pinnipeds. Elephant seal pups are sometimes abandoned by their mothers prematurely because of interference from humans or dogs, leaving them alone and hungry on a beach.

When the pup is too young to fend for itself, The Marine Mammal Center will rescue it and care for it until it is deemed ready to be released back to the ocean. Located in the Marin Headlands, The Marine Mammal Center is a rescue hospital which rehabilitates distressed, sick, and injured animals, nursing them back to health, with the goal of returning them to the wild. The Marine Mammal Center has just rescued the first pup of the 2014 season, bringing in a blackcoat named Fraggle from San Luis Obispo County. Newborn elephant seal pups are known as blackcoats, for the dark downy hair called lanugo that they shed about a month after they are born.

The work of The Marine Mammal Center is testimony to the changed attitude we now have toward conservation and the value of wildlife in our midst. As we mourn the loss of the passenger pigeon, or dream about the return of the buffalo, we can look to the elephant seal as a success story and a reason for rejoicing. We as human beings can redeem ourselves for the past destruction of this species by working to preserve our coast and enhance the health of our oceans.