Nicole Teutschel at Año Nuevo State Reserve, CA-- The elephant seal breeding season has reached its peak! This week is when we find the greatest number of elephant seals hauled out along beaches of Año Nuevo State Reserve in Northern California.

There are dozens of females arriving from their long journey everyday. Unlike the females that arrived in early January, the new arriving females find the beaches pretty crowded already! This is the busiest time of year, not only for the number of seals on the beach, but because there are females still giving birth, coming in to estrous and weaning their pups, and males fighting to protect the harems. The beach is alive with thousands of northern elephant seals!

Elephant Seal Homecoming Days too has reached a peak! Homecoming Days is an education and outreach event online at TOPP.org. Homecoming days showcases the migration of 15 satellite tagged northern elephant seals. The E Seal Team blogs, maintains facebook pages, live tracks online, and other fun activities at TOPP.org.

So far, the E Seal Team has recovered tags from ten of our featured seals.

Sebastian, an adult male elephant seal tagged in August 2008. Photo: Nicole Teutschel

Sunny, she was the first seal we recovered satellite tags from this breeding season! Here, doctoral student Melinda Fowler is using a small ultrasound machine to measure Sunny's blubber thickness. Pretty cool! See her pup on the left? He's fast asleep and hasn't even noticed us yet! Photo: Ashley Pearson.

Callie on the move at North Point. After E Seals hit the beach, they look for the perfect spot to have their pup! Once they have given birth, they tend to stay around that very spot for the next month! Callie's busy searching for the right plot of sand.

Stelephant Colbert, lounging in the sand. Photo: Melinda Fowler.

Josephine's pup staring beyond the camera, with her satellite tagged mother behind. Photo: Erin Pickett

 This shot was taken of Jon Sealwart, just before his tags were recovered! Photo: Melinda Fowler

Poppy, shortly after she returned from sea! It didn't take her very long to become verrrry sandy! Photo: Nicole Teutschel

 Featherfoot Seal in her harem at Año Nuevo State Reserve. 

Ellie and her pup sunbathing at Año Nuevo State Reserve. 

Spot's CTD tag just after it was removed! This nifty tag records salinity of the water as Spot dives through the ocean. This tag collects data used to study deep ocean environments. Photo: Mike Tift

There are still seals out to sea! Sandy, Sidda, and Monty have yet to show up at the beach. Besides recovering satellite tags from seals who were satellite tagged last spring, the TOPP E Seal Team has been deploying tags on a new group of elephant seals. So far TOPP has deployed on three elephant seals. This new group of seals will wear their tags until April-May when they will return to molt.

Stay tuned to hear about the returning seals, see video of the harems, and to learn more about E Seal science!