A female Northern Elephant Seal, Mirounga angustirostris, in the water off Isla San Bonito Oueste. That island is the largest of the three Islas San Bonitos, and the only one which is populated, mostly seasonally by fishermen, who have erected a little village there, with its own church.
There is a little colony of Northern Elephant seals near the landing on the island. At the time of my visit, the big bulls had already gone out to sea, and there were only a few adult females left with all the weaners of the year.
Northern Elephant Seals were hunted almost to extinction for their blubber, which was used for lamp oil. The species had been delared extinct in 1884, but in 1892, a Smithsonian expedition discovered a remnant colony of eight animals, and killed some for their collections!
Presumably there were some other undiscovered individuals hanging on, but in 1910, there were still fewer than 100 individuals of this species left, all on Guadalupe island off Baja California. The species was accorded protection by the Mexican Government in 1922.
Thanks to protection and conservation measures, a recent count estimated that there are 150,000 individuals, which spend most of their lives in the North Pacific Ocean between Baja California and Alaska, coming ashore to breed on the coasts of Baja California and California USA between January and March.
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