UPDATED: 2007-01-12

Although northern elephant seals are oceanic animals and as individuals spend the majority of their life at sea, as a population elephant seals utilize the Piedras Blancas colony nearly year round. There are two principle reasons elephant seals come ashore: molting (shedding their fur coat) and birthing/breeding. From April through August the elephant seals return to shore to molt, with females and juveniles molting first followed by subadult males and finally adult males. By August they are gone, back at sea with a new coat of a fur.

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