Mirounga Point [SEP] continent
Mirounga Point
Mirounga Point () is the east entrance point to Potter Cove, King George Island, in the South Shetland Islands off Antarctica. The feature was called "Punta Baliza" (beacon point) by R. Araya and F. Herve in 1966. It was later called "Punta Elefante" by the Argentine Antarctic Expedition after the elephant seal ("Mirounga leonina"), in connection with the establishment of Site of Special Scientific Interest number 13 (now Antarctic Specially Protected Area 132) in this vicinity under the Antarctic
extirpated in the nineteenth century have recovered at Point Reyes: the northern elephant seal and the tule elk.
Beginning in the 18th century northern elephant seals ("Mirounga angustirostris") were hunted extensively almost to extinction by the end of the 19th century. They were prized for oil that could be made from their blubber, and the population may have fallen as low as 20. In 1874 American whaleman Charles Melville Scammon recorded in "Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of America", that "the elephant seal...known