No, not the Navy Seals. This invasion force consists of about 90 elephant seals who stormed ashore at a park beach abandoned during the government shutdown, and made it their own. And they show no signs of leaving.
Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, northwest of San Francisco is now home to 50 to 60 adults, who weigh up to 9,000 pounds apiece and 35 or so pups, many of them still nursing.
Now that the government is open again, the Park Service is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the future, as well as a walk out-and-see attitude for now, with daily-changing arrangements to take groups of visitors to a nearby parking lot to observe the seals, who, despite their bulk can move at high speeds and are not very friendly to intruders.
Officials believe that strong storms and high tides elsewhere forced the seal herd to search out new nesting space, and the shutdown gave them an opportunity to become squatters in the park.
