Where blubber meets the road

This time each year in San Simeon, CA, , hundreds of croaking, roaring, shrieking elephant seals gather to breed and give birth on the rocky shoreline below Hearst Castle. The boisterous annual show draws hordes of tourists to a boardwalk 15 feet above, where they can watch the enormous pinnipeds tend the shiny black pups, squabble over beach space and battle for the right to mate. But this year, some of the seals are sneaking past barbed-wire fences designed to protect them, then flopping on blubbery bellies right across California 1. Local officials are scratching their heads over how to keep the highway safe while protecting the thousands of seals that return to Piedras Blancas each winter. Source: LA Times Photo Credit: Hicker Photo