Point reyes national seashore webcam9/25/2023 We recommend that visitors stay around 90 meters (300 feet) away from seals resting onshore. Harbor seals are shy animals whose habits are easily disrupted by the presence of humans on land. Their habit of hauling onto land to rest, give birth and nurse their young, and warm themselves in the sun provides nature enthusiasts a chance for an excellent wildlife sighting, but also makes the harbor seal vulnerable to disturbance. Harbor seals, and other pinnipeds, usually haul out in large groups onshore at traditional sites such as Point Reyes Headland. Select colonies at Point Reyes have been monitored since 1976, and have increased as the population has recovered with protection provided by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Point Reyes has the largest population of harbor seals in California, excluding the Channel Islands, with twenty percent of state's harbor seals living or breeding within the park's boundaries. Some seals also migrate annually up to 800 km (500 miles) during the winter months to other foraging areas, and then return to Point Reyes to breed and molt their fur. Harbor seals are residents of Point Reyes and so they may be sighted year-round both on land and in the nearshore waters. Sometimes when they see a person walking on the shore or kayaking, they follow at a distance of as close as 15–45 meters (50–150 feet) in the bays and estuaries of the park. Harbor seals are curious animals when in the water, and often lift their heads out of the water to look around. They often haul out along the Pacific Coast from the Bering Sea to Baja California, sometimes in large numbers at established colony sites. When you walk along a trail overlooking the numerous pocket beaches of Point Reyes, you may catch a glimpse of shy harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina).
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