Melinda Fowler at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA--The elephant seals are returning after their post-breeding foraging trip.  The adult females must recover the mass lost after having a pup and nursing it for 27 days.  She heads to sea to build up her fat reserves and then returns to Ano Nuevo to molt--grow new hair and skin.  The females who left the beach in late January are already hitting the beach again.  It seems like only a short time since they left, but it's been about 2 months since they left.  We've recovered 3 so far, and 20 to go!! 

Patrick Webster at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA-- Hi everybody! Welcome to The Smelly Show! My name is Jon Sealwart and… "Applause" Thank you, thank you. Oh come on now, thank you, you're very kind. I guess this what happens when you spike the calamartinis. Thank you. For those of you at home, that was just the beach sneezing… They're not happy to be here, just congested. OK.

Molly McCormley at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA --Welcome back to our Day in the Life blog during Elephant Seal Homecoming Days! This week we will be looking at YEARLINGS! These guys are awesome because while they are surviving on their own, they don't seem to actually realize how tough they are!

Ashley Pearson at Año Nuevo State Reserve, CA-- The TOPP Team went out to Año Nuevo State Reserve to recover, or take off, satellite, time-depth-recorder and radio tags from Josephine the northern elephant seal, or E Seal.

Ashley Pearson at Año Nuevo State Reserve, CA-- Hey, I'm Ashley Pearson!  Nice to meet you, TOPP.org!  I'm a senior biology major at UCSC, and I'm doing a senior thesis through the Costa lab at Long Marine Lab.  As part of my thesis, I have become a member of the TOPP E Seal team!  From time to time I will blog about the my project and the animals we work with.  

Molly McCormley at UC Santa Cruz, Long Marine Lab, CA-- Ever wondered what its like to be an E Seal? What about an E Seal PUP!? E Seals are incredible animals, swimming thousands of miles each year, only coming out of the water twice to breed and molt. These are not your average seals, e seals are tough oceanic predators!

Nicole Teutschel at UC Santa Cruz, Long Marine Lab--The E Seal Team recovered Sunny’s tags this week! Sunny is a one of TOPP’s featured seals with Elephant Seal Homecoming Days, and for a good reason! When Sunny was 3 years old, she had a packing strap (a plastic piece of garbage) stuck around her arm (or, flipper!) pits. As she grew and got bigger, the strap got tighter, and tighter.

Nicole Teutschel from UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA-- Northern elephant seals and other local pinniped species will be featured in a film on NOVA on Tuesday, November 25th at 8 pm (local listings may vary).