There are still plenty of northern elephant seals to be seen in the Point Reyes National Seashore, but their numbers are waning as cows head back to sea and leave their pups to fend for themselves. The peak single-day count of the season came on Jan. 30, with 2,233 seals, including 1,103 adult females and 962 pups. This year’s totals are slightly below the average over the last five years. “We don’t know why,” Scott Carr, a regional spokesman for the National Park Service, said in an email. “We have been seeing lower counts since 2023, but these have been small declines. Our annual monitoring will help us see if this is an ongoing decline or if these were just a few low years.” Park staff counted 85 percent of the seals at Drakes Beach, including the beaches around Chimney Rock. Another 11 percent were at the Point Reyes Headlands and 4 percent were counted at South Beach. At the Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center, there were there were a total of 152 on the day of the peak count, including 76 females and 65 pups. The site became an increasingly popular location for pregnant females to haul up during the early aughts. Initially, park staff tried to discourage the cows from weaning their pups there to avoid conflicts with beach visitors, but they have since accepted their liking for the site and assigned a full contingent of docents to keep the peace between the pinnipeds and humans. After their mothers leave, the weaned pups are left alone for two to three months while they learn to swim and continue to grow in preparation for their first foraging journey at sea. During this period, they lose as much as 25 percent of their weight. When they are first weaned, the average weight of a pup is about 300 pounds, but according to an ongoing study of northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park, a handful reach as much as 600 pounds. They accomplish this feat by stealing some milk from the mothers of other pups. Male pups are more successful than females at stealing milk; researchers observed males attempting to steal milk from as many as five to 10 females in succession. “Although this strategy almost always involved a bite from one or more females, some male weaners pursued milk-stealing daily for as long as 3.5 weeks,” a summary of the study states. “It was rare for a female weaner to steal milk for more than a single day.”