UPDATED: 2007-01-09

Elephant seals were hunted heavily in the 1800's for their fatty blubber which was rendered into high quality oil for machinery, lamp oil and paint. They were driven onto beaches and beaten. By the late 1880's they were nearly extinct, so much so that sealers could no longer locate them and switched to hunting other species. A small holdout colony at remote Guadalupe Island off Baja California, Mexico remained, from which all northern elephant seals today are descended. This genetic bottleneck is a concern since the entire population has only the genetic variation (and potential weaknesses) of a few dozen animals.

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