Northern Elephant Seals on the Southern California Channel Islands and El Niño

Abstract

Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) hauled out seasonally, and perhaps bred, on the southern California Channel Islands historically but they were locally extinct by the late 1800s (Stewart et al. in press). Several of the islands were colonized in the 1950s and births increased rapidly there through the early 1980s (Cooper and Stewart 1983), particularly on San Miguel Island which is now the largest rookery in the species’ range and accounts for about half of all northern elephant seal births (Stewart 1989).