Año Nuevo State Reserve

Visiting the Park
Año Nuevo State Reserve is fascinating in every season. Elephant seal pups are born between December and February during the "Breeding Season." During the spring and summer months, elephant seals come ashore to shed their fur during the "Molting Season." Each fall, yearling seals "hang out" on the beaches during the "Fall Haul Out Season."

A Wildlife Protection Area is designated at Año Nuevo Point to provide wildlife viewing opportunities and minimize disturbance to the animals in their natural habitat. Visitor entry into the Wildlife Protection Area is restricted year-round. Plan your visit by checking out the "seasons" of the Wildlife Protection Area:

Pre-Season: December 1-14
Pregnant females and adult males begin to arrive on the beaches and form harems. Visitor access is closed during this period.

Breeding Season: December 15 - March 31
Northern elephant seals come ashore to give birth and mate from early December through March. Bull seals engage in battles for breeding access to the females from early December through January. Pregnant females come ashore to pup from late December to early February, and mothers nurse their pups for about a month before mating and returning to the sea. By early March, most of the adults have returned to the sea. Pups remain behind through March basking in the sun and learning to swim.

The reserve offers naturalist-guided walks between December 15 and March 31, which feature the seals in their natural habitat. To view the seals during this season, you must be on a guided walk. These popular three-mile walks over rolling sand dunes last about two and a half hours and are considered moderately strenuous. They operate daily from early morning. See Related Links for: Public Seal Walks and School Group Walks.

Molting Season: April 1 - August 31
Northern elephant seals come ashore during the spring and summer months to shed their outer layer of skin and fur. This "molting" process takes from four to six weeks per animal as they rest along the beaches. Female and juvenile seals molt from May through June and older males from July through August.

During the "Molting Season," the Wildlife Protection Area is open for self-guided hiking by Visitor Permit only. Obtain your free Visitor Permit daily from the entrance station, between 8:30 am and 3:30 p.m. No reservations are required and no Guided Walks are offered. Visitors must exit the Wildlife Protection Area by 5 p.m., which is earlier than the general Reserve's closing hour of sunset. Please plan to arrive early enough to obtain a permit and make the three to four mile hike before 5 p.m. Most groups require about two and a half to three hours to make the round-trip hike.

Fall Haul Out Season: September 1 - November 30
By summer's end, most elephant seals have returned to sea to feed. Small numbers of one to three year old juveniles haul out on remote beaches as part of their early development.

During the "Fall Haul Out" the Wildlife Protection Area is open for self-guided hiking by Visitor Permit only. Obtain your free permit daily from the entrance station, between 8:30am and 3pm only. No reservations are required and no Guided Walks are offered. Visitors must exit the Wildlife Protection Area by 4pm, which is earlier than the general Reserve's closing hour of sunset. Please plan to arrive early enough to obtain a permit and make the four to five mile hike before 4pm. Most groups require about three hours to make the round-trip hike.

Contact Information
Recorded Information: 650-879-0227
Año Nuevo SR Office: 650-879-2025 from 8:30am - 4:30pm. Not for Reservations!
Accessible Visitor Reservations: 650-879-2033
International Reservations: 916-638-5883

Tips & Rules
The following rules and regulations are for your own safety and to protect the plants and animals that live in this park.

•No pets. Pets are not allowed in the park and cannot be left inside parked vehicles in the parking lot. Kennels are not available.
•No harassing or disturbing wild animals. This is prohibited by state and federal laws.
•Keep your distance. Elephant seals are dangerous wild animals. Never get within 25 feet of an elephant seal, and make sure your children don't either.
•No collecting. Shells, rocks, wood, plants or animals. All features of this park are protected by law.
•No smoking or fires. Smoking is not permitted in buildings or on guided walks. Fires of all types are prohibited.

Facilities
A Visitor Center features natural history exhibits and a bookstore offering educational items such as books, postcards and posters. Restrooms, drinking water and picnic tables are available near the Visitor Center only. Food and beverages are not sold at the park.

Elephant Seals
Perhaps the most compelling attraction for human visitors to Año Nuevo State Reserve is the large colony of northern elephant seals that assembles here each winter. So named because of their large size and long pendulous noses on the males, these large animals spend most of their lives at sea, coming ashore only to molt, give birth, and mate.

History: Hundreds of thousands of northern elephant seals once inhabited the Pacific Ocean. They were slaughtered wholesale in the 1800s for the oil that could be rendered from their blubber. By 1892, only 50 to 100 individuals were left. The only remaining colony was on the Guadalupe Island off the coast of Baja California.

In 1922, the Mexican government gave protected status to elephant seals, and the U. S. government followed suit a few years later when the seals began to appear in Southern California waters. Since that time, elephant seals have continued to multiply exponentially, and they have extended their breeding range as far north as Point Reyes. Today, there are approximately 160,000 northern elephant seals.

The first elephant seals on Año Nuevo Island were sighted in 1955, and the first pup was born there in 1961. In 1978, 872 were born there. Males began to haul out on the mainland in 1965. A pup born in January 1975 was the first known mainland birth of a northern elephant seal at Año Nuevo; 86 pups were born there in 1978. By 1988/1989, about 2,000 elephant seals came ashore at Año Nuevo, and the number of seals breeding and giving birth on the mainland is still increasing. During the 1994-95 breeding season, approximately 2,000 pups were born on the mainland.

Breeding Season: The elephant seal breeding season begins at Año Nuevo in December, when the first males arrive. From fourteen to sixteen feet long and weighing up to 2 1/2 tons, these huge bulls engage in violent battles to establish dominance. The successful bulls do much of the breeding, with most of the duty falling on the "alpha" bull at the top of the social ladder.

Birth: In late December, the females begin to arrive and form "harems" on the beaches of the Reserve. Much smaller than the males, they average ten to twelve feet in length and weigh 1,200 to 2,000 pounds. Three to six days after she arrives, the female gives birth to the pup that was conceived the previous year. Normally only one pup is born to each female, and she nurses for 25 to 28 days.

Nursing: Ordinarily, a mother nurses her own pup, although if they are separated another female may adopt the youngster. Feeding on its mother's rich milk (55% fat), the pup grows from approximately 75 pounds at birth to 250-350 pounds in less than a month. Some resourceful pups nurse from two or three females. They can weigh 600 pounds and are aptly called "super weaners".

Mating and Gestation: Females come into season and mate about 24 days after giving birth. However, the fertilized egg does not implant in the wall of her uterus for about four months a rare phenomenon called "delayed implantation". The theory is that the female is so weak after nursing and fasting that she doesn't have enough energy to nourish the egg. Since the seals' gestation period is seven months, this delay means that the young will be born after the female reaches her breeding ground the following year. The pups could not survive if born at sea. Adult females may mate several times before returning to the ocean, abruptly weaning their pups by desertion. By mid-March, most of the adult seals are gone, leaving the pups behind.

Weaners: When the weaned pups are four to six weeks old, their original coat of black fur molts and is replaced by a shiny new silver coat. Soon afterward, they begin learning to swim in the shallow offshore waters or ponds formed by rainwater. They are very curious and rather awkward and somewhat afraid of the water at first. But they learn quickly, spend more and more time swimming about, and then, during the last three weeks of April, they go to sea one by one and disperse northwestward. They feed off the coast of northern Washington and Vancouver Island in British Columbia and do not appear on land again until September.

Molting: Pinnipeds, like other mammals, must replace old skin and hair. Most animals shed hairs year-around, but elephant seals do it all at once. The molting process is so abrupt in the elephant seal that it is called a catastrophic molt. During the spring and summer months, elephant seals return to Año Nuevo for their annual molts.
• April to May - Females and juveniles
• May to June - Sub-adult males
• July to August - Adult males

Feeding: At sea, elephant seals typically dive 20 minutes to a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 feet in search of food: rays, skates, rat fish, squid, and small sharks. The maximum recorded depth is 5,015 feet by a male in 1991. The females eat nothing while they are giving birth, nursing, and mating, and the males go without food for up to three months at that time. They are preyed upon by killer whales and sharks.

Development: females give birth for the first time at an average age of 3-4 and have an average life expectancy of about 20 years. Males are mature at five years, don't reach high rank until 8 with prime breeding years between 9-12. Males have a life expectancy of 14 years.

Land Animals
Grizzly bears and other large mammals were once common at Año Nuevo, and grizzlies in particular were a dominant factor in the animal life of this region. They were a constant threat to the Indians who lived here for centuries, and they were still a significant danger for Spanish and early American settlers during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a grizzly, for example, that killed William Waddell in 1875, near the creek that bears his name at Big Basin State Park, just south of Ano Nuevo. And it was not until about the mid-1880s that the last grizzly in the Santa Cruz Mountains was killed.

Most of the animals that now live in the reserve are nocturnal. Bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, weasels, brush rabbits and black-tailed deer are all regular residents. Bats can also be seen after dark.

Reptiles are often found sunning themselves on warm days. Common western yellow-bellied racers and coast garter snakes eat small rodents and insects. One of the most colorful snakes in North America, the rare and endangered San Francisco garter snake, inhabits marshy areas and feeds on amphibians.

Marine Life
The moderate climate of California's central coast region helps make intertidal life at Ano Nuevo among the most luxuriant in the world. Air and sea temperatures vary far less from winter to summer than is true in other parts of the world. As a result of this and other factors, tide pools along the rocky shoreline teem with life. More than 300 species of invertebrates have been recorded at Año Nuevo, including an unusual number of rare species. Common life forms include clams, abalone, limpets, chitons, hermit crabs and flower-like anemones. Tiny worms build huge honeycomb homes on shallow rocky ledges. Nutrients from seal and sea lion wastes seem to fertilize the lush aquatic plant growth, so that rockfish and bottom fish abound in offshore waters.

Año Nuevo Island and the adjacent mainland beaches make up one of the most important pinniped rookery and resting areas in central and northern California. (Pinnipeds are animals with finlike feet or flippers.) Northern elephant seals are the largest, and, in many ways, the most impressive of these animals. Harbor seals are much smaller and quite wary and elusive. Two kinds of sea lions are also present: Steller and California. The tawny brown or yellowish Steller sea lions, which mate on the rocks around the island from mid August, are most often seen on the rocky outer portions of the island. Dark brown California sea lions do not breed at Año Nuevo, but hundreds of them, mostly males, visit the island in September and October, when they use it as a resting place on their annual feeding migration northward from rookeries in Mexico. The characteristic bark of the males is both loud and incessant and can be heard for miles. By contrast, the forlorn, almost human wail of a female who has lost her pup stands out in sharp relief from the cacophony of the males.

Harbor seals live on the island all year and breed there in April and May. They can often be seen bobbing in the surf just off the reserve's beaches, with only their heads out of the water. They can also be seen occasionally on offshore rocks where the mottled pattern of their coats is apparent.

Visitors may occasionally spot sea otters offshore, diving for food or floating on their backs. Like the elephant seal, this animal is returning from near-extinction to reoccupy its former range. Sea otter mothers and pups returned to Año Nuevo in the early 1980s, the first sea otters to enter this immediate area in more than a century.

Throughout the spring months, the telltale 10 to 15 foot spouts of the California gray whale are sometimes visible as they pass the Ano Nuevo Point during their annual migration between their breeding grounds off Baja California and their feedings in the Bering Sea.

Birds
Bird life at Año Nuevo is extraordinarily varied and interesting in every season. In the spring, mallards, pintails, wigeons and both Green-winged and Cinnamon Teals can be seen on or near the fresh water pond within the reserve. Migrating waves of warblers, vireos, thrushes, orioles and other land birds also pass through the area in the spring. Red-winged Blackbirds nest near the pond along with the Marsh Wren. Several species of hummingbirds are present in the reserve and especially noticeable in springtime, when they carry out their spectacular courtship rituals.

Swifts and swallows can often be seen hunting insects above the upland brushfields. Quail, meadowlarks, sparrows, finches and other seed eaters live right in the brush. Towhees, bushtits and wrentits can be found in both the chaparral and dune areas. Several kinds of hawks and falcons, including Northern Harriers, Black-shouldered Kites, Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels are often seen hovering above the fields.

Flocks of turnstones, sandpipers and plovers search the beaches and rocky areas for food, especially in April and early May, before moving north for the summer. Loons, grebes, terns and brants are also seen during the spring as they pass through this area on their way north, and at least seven different species of gull migrate through the area each spring, most of them on their way to nesting areas in Canada and Alaska.

Sanderlings, Black turnstones, Marbled Godwits, willets and Black-bellied Plovers are the most numerous shorebirds to be seen during the fall. Brown Pelicans move north from Mexico each spring and can be seen along the California coast throughout most of the year.

The spectacle is always changing and always fascinating, no matter what season you choose to visit the reserve.

Geology
The surf-resistant rock that forms Año Nuevo Point is known as the Monterey Formation. It started out as sedimentary clay and silt laid down beneath the sea some 12 or 13 million years ago. Since then it has been gradually transformed by time, temperature, pressure and the addition of silica from the skeletal remains of one-celled sea creatures, until today it is a thinly layered, light-gray to whitish mudstone. It underlies much of the reserve and is fairly common throughout the Coast Range.

The Monterey Formation material that forms the point today has been lifted above sea level and shoved northward by tectonic activity along the San Gregorio Fault Zone, which cuts through the reserve. Several small thrust faults associated with the major fault zone can be seen in the cliff face along the south shore of the reserve.

When merchant and mariner Sebastian Viscaino first saw Año Nuevo Island in 1603, it was still part of the mainland. The island remains an integral part of the marine terrace that to this day extends out into the sea from the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The westerly portion of the marine terrace is covered by sand dunes that are migrating from north to south, driven by the prevailing northwesterly winds. This 300 to 350 acre dune field is one of the few remaining active dune fields on the California coast, most of the others having been disrupted or destroyed by human activity. Here at Ano Nuevo the dunes are not being overrun by dune buggies or threatened by development, but they are changing character as a result of decreased sand availability and adjacent agricultural activity.

Irrigation of nearby fields has raised the water table within the reserve and enabled the establishment of various kinds of plants. Grasses trap the drifting grains of sand. Wild strawberries form mats of runners across the surface, and deep-rooted willow thickets develop. As dune stabilization continues, bushy perennials like mock heather, lupine, lizardtail and coyote bush appear. Sand verbena, the succulent sea fig and colorful annuals such as evening primrose and sea rocket hug the surface of the sand and provide both cover and food for mice, rabbits and other small animals.

History
Año Nuevo Point was named on January 3, 1603, by Father Antonio de la Ascension, chaplain for the Spanish maritime explorer Don Sebastian Viscaino. A few days earlier, the ship's company had gone ashore at Monterey for wood and water, but they did not land anywhere near Año Nuevo. If they had landed, they would have discovered that the area was occupied by the Quroste, a group of Ohlone Indians, who lived here at least on a seasonal basis in order to hunt, fish, and gather abalone and other shellfish from the sea. The Quroste also collected chert from the beach for use in making spear points, knives, scrapers, arrow points and other tools. This high-quality beach chert was also valuable in trade and has been found at Indian archeological sites in the coast ranges and central valley. Conversely, obsidian spear points from the eastern Sierra have been found in the middens at Año Nuevo.

Ohlone contact with Europeans finally occurred in 1769, when the "Spanish Governor of the Californias," Gaspar de Portola, led an overland expedition northward as far as San Francisco Bay. After Mission Santa Cruz was founded in 1791, hundreds of Ohlones, including the Quroste, were baptized and brought into the mission where they contracted various European diseases, lost contact with their native culture and died in great numbers.

Año Nuevo was used as pastureland by the missionaries. It became a private rancho in 1842, when Governor Alvarado officially granted the area to his uncle, Don Jose Simeon de Nepomuceno Castro, a prominent resident of Monterey. In 1851, Castro's heirs sold the 17,753-acre rancho to the rough and tumble American frontiersman, Isaac Graham.

In 1861, a subsequent owner sold land adjacent to Año Nuevo to the Steele brothers, who developed a very successful dairy operation that continued for some 80 years. The old barns and other historic buildings at Año Nuevo are relics of the Steele Brothers Dairy.

After World War II, changes in the dairy industry and new irrigation technology brought intensive row-crop farming to the Año Nuevo area. Windbreaks of Monterey cypress were planted (some of which still survive), irrigation ponds were built, and straight rows of brussel sprouts were planted in the area just east of Año Nuevo Point. The area was purchased by the State of California in 1971, and today recolonizing plants are slowly erasing the scars left by agricultural activity and the sand mine operation that was carried on during the 1950s for the construction of State Highway One.

As ship traffic increased along the California coast during the early 1800s, the often foggy, rock-strewn shoreline along this part of the coast became well known to mariners as exceptionally dangerous to shipping. Two fine new clipper ships were lost on the rocks between Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point during the 1850s, and other maritime tragedies occurred in later years. To warn mariners, the federal government installed a fog whistle on the island in 1872 and added a five-story light tower in 1890. An automatic buoy replaced the station in 1948.

Accessible Features
Trails
The Boardwalk Trail or Equal Access Trail is a 0.27-mile boardwalk over dunes and coastal scrub along the beach that allows users to see the Northern Elephant seals. See Equal Access Program below to arrange transportation to the trail.

Beach/Shore Access
Beach wheelchairs are available. Call (650) 879-2025 for information.

Exhibits/Programs
Equal Access Program: Persons with a mobility disability may tour the breeding area on Saturdays and Sundays during the breeding season. A wheelchair accessible van transports visitors to the staging area where an accessible boardwalk leads to the point. There is some space for persons accompanying wheelchair users on the Equal Access Tour. Reservations are required and may be made from November 15th until tours are full. The number for reservations or information for this service is 650-879-2033.
Parking: Designated accessible spaces are available in the main lot.
Restrooms: The restrooms near the Visitor Center are generally accessible.

Visitor Center
A historic barn houses a video area, exhibit area and store. The barn is generally accessible with occasional short sloped areas of historic flooring. Assistance may be needed with the side ramp or entry. Exhibits are mostly accessibly designed. The video areas has some folding chairs that can be re-arranged to allow wheelchair access. Video transcript available and open captions for the introductory video are coming. Restrooms nearby are generally accessible.
Parking: Designated Accessible parking spaces are available.
Route of Travel: The route from the parking lot’s accessible spaces to the side entry of the Visitor Center is the most usable, but visitors may require assistance with rolled gravel that occasionally works loose from surface.

Park News Alert
December 15 to March 31:
To view seals you must be on a guided walk.

Book your walk here

Please read Año Nuevo Guided Walks for more information before calling 800-444-4445 for reservations.

Getting There
Año Nuevo State Park is located on State Route 1, approximately 20 miles north of Santa Cruz and 35 miles south of Half Moon Bay. It is about a 1.5 hour drive south of San Francisco.

The Day Use Annual Pass is accepted at this park.