Northern Elephant Seal Video

Elephant Seal Video 512Kb MPEG4 format 11 mb Elephant Seal Video QuickTime format 9.16 mb Elephant Seal Video OGV format 25 mb which is a free, open standard container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The OGV format is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.

Northern Elephant Seal Video, In 2004, the Pacific Coast Science and Learning Center produced a DVD entitled "Science Behind the Scenery."

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While sailing along the Pacific coast in the 1800s, a whale and seal hunter named Charles Scammon reported seeing northern elephant seals from Baja California in Mexico to Point Reyes in California. Sharing the fate of many of the oceans' great whales, the elephant seals were hunted to the brink of extinction for their oil-rich blubber. One bull elephant seal would yield nearly 25 gallons of oil. Though we don't know exactly how many northern elephant seals were alive before the 20th Century, it has been estimated that fewer than 1,000 northern elephant seals existed by 1910. In 1922, the Mexican government banned hunting, followed shortly thereafter by the United States government. Since then, the population of northern elephant seals has recovered at an average rate of six percent per year. Today, thanks to government protection and the seals' distant lives at sea, the worldwide population has grown to an estimated 150,000 seals.

After being absent for more than 150 years, elephant seals returned to the sandy beaches on the rocky Point Reyes Headlands in the early 1970s. In 1981, the first breeding pair was discovered near Chimney Rock. Since then, researchers have found that the colony is growing at a dramatic annual average rate of 16 percent. When severe storms occurred in 1992, 1994, and 1998, many pups were killed. During the El Niño winter of 1998, storms and high tides washed away approximately 85% of the 350 young pups before they had learned to swim. Nevertheless, the Point Reyes elephant seal population is between 1,500 and 2,000. Fanning out from their initial secluded spot, the seals have expanded to popular beaches, causing concern for both their safety and that of their human visitors.

This movie is part of the collection: Open Source Movies
Producer: National Park Service
Audio/Visual: sound
Keywords: Elephant Seals; National Park Service; Point Reyes
Creative Commons license: Public Domain