Elephant Seal Weaners at Ano Nuevo State Natural Reserve

Ano Nuevo Natural Reserve is an hour's ride south of San Francisco where elephant seals hang out, mate, and have baby elephant seals. The baby elephant seals are called weaners when they are done nursing, and can weigh up to 600 pounds. Big babies.

I organized a fun trip there with some friends on the last day you could get a docent-led tour. What fun! Or so I thought.

We were in for more than we bargained for.



This photo pretty much sums it up. There's an elephant seal in the foreground, and a rotting elephant seal carcass in the background.

Now, let me first say that I happily support all national parks, docents, and elephant seals. If you want to see some elephant seals, definitely go to Ano Nuevo and you'll see plenty.

What we weren't expecting was our tour to be so focused on the carcasses. Our docent went quite out of her way to gleefully show us elephant seal carcasses dried up in the sun, or rotting within feet of our tour, with birds pecking at them. We saw not one but two dried up leopard shark corpses. There was some sort of Elephant Seal Blair Witch shrine set up of elephant seal skulls. All of these death reminders were scattered about the beach, but our cheery and smiling guide made sure we saw all of them.

Yes, the stench was most foul. And as Tom pointed out, the screaming baby that got stuck on our tour was voicing how we all felt.

Two and a half hours later, the tour ended. We all learned a lot about elephant seals, living and dead.