Piedras Blancas Colony:
The Story
The Schedule

Everything was going along just fine, and then...

along came the white man. Everybody knows that nearly all species of marine mammals were hunted extensively throughout the 1800s and far into the 1900s. Sealing and whaling continue to this day in several countries. Several of these species lent themselves to being slaughtered with particular efficiency. Grey and humpback whales migrated very close to shore during the breeding season and were easily pursued. And elephant seals, well they just sat there on the shore and took it, never even thinking about fleeing.

Since then, the whales, the seals, their attitudes haven't changed, but ours sure have. Even more impressive than the elephant seal's comeback is our absolute turn around in how we view and treat these creatures. I won't pretend and say there aren't a few people out there who would like to start blasting again, but in this age of slightly higher intelligence and global media coverage an animal like the northern elephant seal is probably safe from this type of narrow-minded cruelty for a long time to come.

Elephant Seals = Lots of Blubber

For many years in the early 1800s the elephant seal was left alone while other marine mammals were hunted extensively, such as the sperm whale, sea otter, and fur seal. At the time these animals were much more valuable. But that would soon change and it is absolutely shocking how quickly we can wipe a species from the face of the Earth.

The convergence of several events led to the hunting of elephant seals. Sperm whales were in serious decline while the grey whale was more dangerous to hunt. Also, both the fur seal and sea otter were becoming scarce. Additionally, in the early 1800s the need for oil was totally met by whaling, but with the onset of the Gold Rush in 1849 the need for oil and lubrication skyrocketed, as did the population in the West. The oil rendered from elephant seal blubber was of extremely high quality and so both whalers and sealers went in pursuit.

The main thrust of elephant seal hunting lasted all of about 15 years. The first large-scale hunting trips around 1846 reported seals in spectacular abundance, but by 1860 they were so scarce it was no longer economical to hunt them. It was undoubtedly the elephant seal's tameness and tendency to conveniently haul out on beaches in huge numbers that led to their quick demise. There is very little documentation of this era, having occurred before the wide-spread use of photography, not to mention that the people involved in this line of work were not the most up-standing individuals. But the fact remains, at first they were everywhere, then there were none.

Reports of how these seals were killed is equally shocking. A sealer would simply walk up to a sleeping seal and blast it in the head. The loud noise would not wake up the neighboring seals and so the sealers could kill as many as they wanted. If it were the breeding season they would sometimes blind a large bull in one eye so he could only view his harem. When the sealers had time to kill more seals they would walk up to the bull on his blind side and blast him. Some beaches allowed the sealers to herd the seals to one end and trap them there for any amount of time and kill them as needed. The butchering of the seals was done right on the beach within feet of the rest of the herd.

And the hunting of the elephant seal was total. Bulls, females, and pups were taken. Usually only the blubber was used while the skin, meat, bones, and guts were left to rot. When a small colony of 3-400 was discovered in 1880 at San Cristobal Bay, about half-way down the Baja California mainland, they were all killed, every single one. Between 1884 and 1892, search as people might, not a single elephant seal was sighted anywhere and they were thought to be extinct.

Elephant Seals Had Other Ideas

Then, the Gold Rush died out, fossil fuel was discovered, and an interest in the natural world was beginning. In 1892 a Smithsonian expedition to Guadalupe Island discovered 8 elephant seals. But these early expeditions didn't seem to be interested as much in species preservation as they were in collecting these rare specimens for science. As a result they killed 7 of the seals to bring back to U.S. museums. Reports of this discovery by Charles H. Townsend of the New York Aquarium further reveal that as they were loading the seals in the boats the surf came up and they were forced to leave 4 of the 7 on the sand. Nice.

This was rock-bottom for the elephant seal. It's estimated that only between 20 and 100 individuals existed at that time. For the next twenty years each scientific expedition to Guadalupe Island killed as many specimens as they could as demand for them in museums of natural history was great. And despite this the population slowly recovered. Charles Townsend's expedition in 1911 counted 125 seals, and another expedition in 1922 counted 264. This latter expedition led to the elephant seal being totally protected by the Mexican government. And they were serious. They even posted a guard and patrol boat at uninhabited and inhospitable Guadalupe Island, 150 miles offshore. So give Mexico credit for being the first to protect both the elephant seal and grey whale.

What a Comeback!

If there were between 20 and 100 individuals total, how many of these do you think were mature bulls? You may have been able to count them on one hand. And yet, they bred successfully, until now the population is estimated to be over 150,000 and covers all of their former range. Undoubtedly it was their migration schedule that tricked us into giving them up for extinction. Logs from Townsend's expeditions show us that even the natural history expeditions of that time had little knowledge of the elephant seal lifestyle. This is one of the largest and most successful animal recoveries of our time.

But the concern now is about their genetic diversity, or DNA bottleneck, which may make the entire population vulnerable to disease. For now, however, they are doing well. Another concern that many have is how much will the population continue to expand. The Piedras Blancas colony is giving us hints at what could happen and how the public could be affected. What if they decide to create a new colony even closer to human civilization, Malibu for example? What if? Do you own beachfront property? Stay tuned.