Ano Nuevo State Park

Ano Nuevo State Park is a home for elephant seals. Ano Nuevo is a world class site. There are only a few such places on earth, for elephant seals. There are none that are as accessible to the public as Ano Nuevo.

Liz first clued me into Ano Nuevo. She had visited it just before I met her earlier this year. Then it was the elephant seal’s breeding season, their high tourist season. I couldn’t visit them then, but I made it this time.

Ano Nuevo is located halfway between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. During breeding season reservation are required. On Tuesday, I just drove in to the park.

There are two points, south and north, at Ano Nuevo. The south point only had about a half dozen small elephant seals. The north point had about fifty seals.

The docent pointed out the infant elephant seal skull that was sitting on the park bench. What I took for some sort of prehistoric elephant seal skull was in fact part of a whale’s skull. Ninety percent of the seals were males and they were all fighting.

1 thought on “Ano Nuevo State Park

Leave a Reply