Reader Patricia kindly left us with something to look at while I’m gone: the webcam of seals and other wildlife living on Año Nuevo Island off the coast of California. As you can read below, Patricia works here.
Here is the location from Wikipedia:
Patricia gives us the lowdown (indented), and the link to the webcam is below.
Año Nuevo Island is a small island (~9 acres) off the central coast of California, ~60 mi. south of San Francisco . The webcam is supported by California State Park. The camera shows the SE end of the island in 3 views, each about 30 sec.View #1 is a sandy beach that extends toward the mainland with a collapsing catwalk across the center of the scene. In winter hundreds of Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) pup and mate here. Currently (Aug.) the beach is used by thousands of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and a few molting male e-seals. Sea lions sometimes sleep atop these king size ’Sealy Posturpedics’. If there is a point break, the sea lions enjoy surfing it. In the foreground there are some of the thousands of nesting Brandt’s cormorants (Urile penicillatus). The chicks are almost full grown now, but still ‘fuzzy’View #2 shows the top terrace of the island and the deteriorating light keeper’s house (built 1906, fog horn station began in 1872 – replaced by a buoy in 1948). The terrace and house are occupied by thousands of sea lions and cormorants. A few Western gulls (Larus occidentalis) attempt to nest amidst the fray. Fog allowing, the ridge on the mainland shows a very ragged tree line, the result of the 2020 CZU lightning complex fire. It was dense forest pre-fire.View #3 is a rocky cove on the ocean side of the island occupied by hundreds of sea lions and their pups can often be seen playing here. Brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) can sometimes be seen roosting below the camera.On a warm day, if you check the camera at midday and then again in the early evening, you can see a mass migration of the sea lions from down on the cooler, wetter beaches up to the dryer terrace.I’ve been working at Año Nuevo for 30+ years including about a dozen when I spent a good part of the summer on the island. It is often chilly and very windy there, necessitating watch cap plus hard hat (for gull strikes of both feet and guano, they have incredible aim and adjust for the wind), gloves, five layers on my torso and knee pads since most movement was on hands and knees. If you have questions, ask in the comments and I’ll try to answer them.
Click on the screenshot and bookmark it for hours of fun and enlightenment. If your browser doesn’t work (I have trouble on Chrome), try another. The link is also here.
From the webcam’s site:
The Año Nuevo Island camera provides viewers with spectacular views of Año Nuevo Island live. Several angles are displayed for 30 seconds before the camera pans to the next position. The camera is live from 8:00 am – 5:00 pm.
Located 1/2 mile from the mainland, Año Nuevo Island is not accessible for the general public. It has been set aside with other sections of Año Nuevo State Park as a Natural Preserve, dedicated as habitat for a diversity of wildlife. Although now a home for marine mammals and nesting birds, evidence of human occupation is still evident from the historic light station buildings that began operation in 1872. These buildings were abandoned in 1948 and some still stand today.
Thank you very much for this. Holy cow is there ever a lot going on! At first it just looks like a lot of lounging and resting and then you can see little pockets of activity and action. It’s mesmerizing. This was a wonderful going away gift.
Cool
🦭🦭🦭
Many years ago I visited Año Nuevo State Park. It was late in the season, and not many critters were left on the beach – just few dead ones. I walked up to one and shoved it with my foot. It was not dead. That bloated worm-like thing could sure move fast, and I could barely move any faster. I think I contributed to some of the stench on the beach that day.
Wow! That little island is densely populated right now and there *is” a lot of activity. How very cool. I bookmarked it. Thanks!
Frans Lanting, a well known wildlife photographer who has worked around the world has said that Año Nuevo island has the densest animal population he has encountered anywhere. There have been times when the sea lions were so dense it was impossible to go ashore.
In an attempt to provide sustainable nesting habitat for Rhinoceros auklets (Cerorhinca monocerata), which nest in burrows, a non-profit, Oikonos.org, built massive fences across the island to fence sea lions out of the central portion. They have since tried repeatedly to get vegetation going, carpeting the area with jute erosion control material, planting thousands of native plants and watering in the summer. The initial effort required a big landing craft and two front loaders to move Eucalyptus logs to the island. A later effort used a Coast Guard helicopter to transport more carpet rolls of erosion control material and cargo net loads of plants (a training mission for the coast guard personnel). It has had limited success under the onslaught of drought, gulls, cormorants and pelicans. They also installed numerous clay nesting modules which have been more successful. You can see more about their efforts on their website.
Interesting. The sea lions are basking in the afternoon sun.
When motivated, e-seals can move faster than most people expect. Even the big males can ‘get air’, as in, you can see light beneath their entire length, if they are running for their life. That said, any able bodied adult human can outrun them and they rarely pursue very far, but don’t trip. (Just in case – my experience with Southern elephant seals, who were much less familiar with people than the Año Nuevo seals, was that they were willing to pursue much further.)
Thinking an e-seal is dead or sick is not all that uncommon. One even fooled me once long ago when I was a grad. student. We kept weaned pups for brief periods (< a month) in tanks at our lab for physiology studies. One evening, closing up I went to check on the animals and found one was floating in the tank in a very odd position, on her side with head and rear flippers hanging down. I went in and shook her – no response – I shook her harder – no response – I banged her against the tank wall – no response – I whacked her – no response – I punched her – no response. All this had taken 5 min. I was convinced she had died. I couldn't get her out of the tank alone, so I headed to main campus to retrieve the faculty member in charge of the lab. We walked into the pool area to find five perfectly healthy weaners frolicking in the pool. I was embarrassed but very relieved.
I’ll check in again tomorrow to see if there are any questions.