Año Nuevo State Reserve - Guided Tour

Video of the Año Nuevo Guide Tour Did you know that their are only three places in the world that you can find elephant seals for viewing. All three are in California. Año Nuevo is the only place where we can watch Elephant Seals from as close as 25 feet away. We took the Elephant Seal guided tour yesterday. My dad had reserved the tickets two months in advance, as they are hard to get. People from all over the world join this guided tour. Remember to book them early. Details are here Female Elephant Seals come to theis places to have babies but males come because females are there. When females come to Año Nuevo they are 2000 lbs. but when they leave they are around 800 lbs. Males are 5000 lbs. when they come and are 2000 lbs. when they leave. They have Elephant Seals in various stages (infant, weaning etc). There were almost 4000 Elephant Seals when we visited. The park maintains an accurate count. There, it was very windy and the sand always got in my eyes. On the way back my brother was complaining that sand was in his eyes. Elephant seals are heavy animals and are fun to watch. I think you should go and watch them soon. Fifty-five miles south of San Francisco and the Golden Gate, a low, rocky, windswept point juts out into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish maritime explorer Sebastian Vizcaino sailed by the point on January 3, 1603. His diarist and chaplain of the expedition, Father Antonio de la Ascension, named it Punta de Año Nuevo (New Year's Point) for the day on which they sighted it in 1603. Today, the point remains much as Vizcaino saw it from his passing ship. Lonely, undeveloped, wild. Elephant seals, sea lions, and other marine mammals come ashore to rest, mate, and give birth in the sand dunes or on the beaches and offshore islands. It is a unique and unforgettable natural spectacle that hundreds of thousands of people come to witness each year. Año Nuevo State Reserve is the site of the largest mainland breeding colony in the world for the northern elephant seal, and the interpretive program has attracted increasing interest every winter for the past 19 years. People who hope to see the seals during the winter breeding season are urged to get their reservations early. The males battle for mates on the beaches and the females give birth to their pups on the dunes. During the breeding season, December through March, daily access to the reserve is available via guided walks only. Most of the adult seals are gone by early March, leaving behind the weaned pups who remain through April. The elephant seals return to Año Nuevo's beaches during the spring and summer months to molt and can be observed during this time through a permit system.