Where can you see the Southern Elephant Seal?
Some of the best places to see the Southern Elephant Seal in the wild include Lemaire Channel (Antarctica), Parque Nacional de Galápagos (Ecuador) and Elsehul Bay (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) — among 23 wildlife hotspots across 8 countries, including Antarctica, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Australia and Ecuador. Every hotspot below shows real sighting data and the best seasons to visit.
Cabo de Hornos National Park
Cape Horn, Chile
+88 birds+9 mammals
Where the Andes plunge into the Southern Ocean and the Drake Passage churns between two continents, Cabo de Hornos National Park sprawls across one of Earth's…
VIEW NATIONAL PARKCooper Bay
Cooper Bay, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
+28 birds+5 mammals
Where black-sand beaches meet towering cliffs striped with cascading meltwater, one of the Southern Ocean's most dramatic amphitheaters reveals itself. Cooper Bay cuts a deep indent…
VIEW PROTECTED LANDSCAPECuverville Island
Cuverville Island, Antarctica
+19 birds+10 mammals
Granite peaks and sculpted ice define this windswept archipelago off the Antarctic Peninsula, where steep rocky shores plunge into waters thick with drifting brash ice. Cuverville…
VIEW ISLAND & ARCHIPELAGODanco Island
Danco Island, Antarctica
+17 birds+10 mammals
Dramatic black rock pierces the Antarctic Peninsula's icy waters, crowned with permanent snow and ringed by calving glaciers that thunder into the sea. This volcanic outcrop…
VIEW ISLAND & ARCHIPELAGODeception Island
Gabriel de Castilla Base, Antarctica
+26 birds+10 mammals
Steaming geothermal vents pierce a landscape of blackened volcanic sand and ice, where the earth's raw power still trembles beneath your feet. This horseshoe-shaped caldera, flooded…
VIEW ISLAND & ARCHIPELAGODorob National Park
Henties Bay, Namibia
+230 birds+13 mammals
Where the Skeleton Coast meets the Namib Desert's inland reaches, Dorob National Park sprawls across 34,021 square kilometres of one of southern Africa's most austere and…
VIEW NATIONAL PARKElsehul Bay
Bird Island Station, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
+33 birds+4 mammals
Granite peaks rise sheer from the Southern Ocean, their weathered faces streaked with cascading meltwater and cloaked in tussock grass that bends beneath relentless winds. This…
VIEW PROTECTED LANDSCAPEFortuna Bay
Stromness, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
+37 birds+5 mammals
Where tussock grasslands sweep down to black-sand beaches and elephant seals haul out in thunderous colonies, the raw sub-Antarctic landscape reveals itself in its most dramatic…
VIEW PROTECTED LANDSCAPEGarden Route National Park
George, South Africa
+353 birds+54 mammals
Sweeping across the Western Cape's coastal and mountainous terrain, this sprawling national park encompasses over five thousand square kilometers of extraordinarily diverse landscape—from coastal limestone cliffs…
VIEW NATIONAL PARK