Jane Stevens, at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab. For about the next six weeks, a couple of thousand female elephant seals are returning from the far reaches of the North Pacific Ocean to the beaches of Año Nuevo State Reserve. There, they'll give birth to the next generation of pups.

To celebrate this amazing migration, one of two that northern elephant seals undertake every year, we invite you to witness and learn about the seals’ 21,000-mile annual journeys during Elephant Seal Homecoming Days, sponsored by TOPP, California State Parks, and the California State Parks Foundation.

For students and teachers, we will feature a special Elephant Seal Homecoming Days page. It will show a chart of all 10 elephant seals' progress, provide background information about research on the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Reserve, lesson plans for teachers, links to pertinent parts of the Año Nuevo State Reserve site, and videos.

Researchers from Dan Costa’s lab at the UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab attached satellite tags to several female elephant seals last summer. Over the last few months, the seals have lived and foraged along the rich edges of the massive eddies that swirl across the North Pacific.

Through the animated map on the elephant seal page, you can follow ten named elephant seals back to shore. The researchers will post blogs about their arrival, the birth of the pups, and the tag removal. TOPP.org will also post stories on the preliminary findings from the information that the seals’ tags provide.

When TOPP.org debuted last summer, one seal was chosen as a representative for her species and named Penelope. Last week, the other nine seals were given names from their history, or the history of their surroundings. Their names are Myoceen, Mukurma, Isabel, Clara, Cheddar, Coya, Annie, Guadalupe, and Flora.

Myoceen: Named after the geological epoch, during which elephant seals emerged into the fossil record (about 10 million years ago…and yep, we know that it’s really spelled “Miocene”).

Mukurma -- Mukurma means “female” in the language of the Ohlone, who thrived around Ano Nuevo before the Spanish settled along the California coast in the 1600s.

Isabel -- Isabel Meadows, born in Monterey County, CA, 1846 to an Ohlone woman and an American pioneer, was the last known fluent native-speaking Ohlone. She died in 1939.

Penelope -- Penelope, who’s been the representative elephant seal on the main TOPP.org site since July, takes her name from a wise and formidable queen in Greek mythology whose husband was Odysseus.

Clara -- Clara was named after Clara Steele, whose family had a dairy at Año Nuevo. Clara, the human, used recipes from her grandmother’s cookbook to make cheddar cheese, and, by 1857, her family was selling Steele Brothers Cheddar in San Francisco.

Cheddar -- In 1864, the Steele family, owners of a dairy at Año Nuevo, made the biggest wheel of cheese ever seen in California — a two-ton cheddar. It was sold in San Francisco to raise money for a soldier’s fund.

Coya -- Coya’s named after a ship that hit a reef near Año Nuevo and sank. Only three out of 30 people survived. This tragedy led to the U.S. government putting a lighthouse at Pigeon Point and a steam fog whistle at Año Nuevo.

Annie -- In 1894, a baby girl was born on Año Nuevo Island to Breta and John Stenmark, keeper of Año Nuevo Island fog signal station. They named her Annie.

Guadalupe -- Guadalupe was named after the island off Baja California in Mexico, where, in 1892, a tiny colony of fewer than 100 northern elephant seals were discovered after the species was thought to be extinct. In the late 1800s, people had slaughtered hundreds of thousands for oil rendered from their blubber.

Flora -- Flora Steele, a relative of the Steele family that founded a dairy at Año Nuevo, deeded the area’s beach to California on June 28, 1957.

We'll tell you more about the seals over the next few weeks. This afternoon, we're heading out to the beach to see if we can find Cheddar! When we last looked at the satellite data, she was just a few miles/kilometers off the coast! Maybe we'll have some photos or video of her tomorrow!