Friends of the Elephant Seal group finds alternative ways to educate during pandemic and last updated 2020-12-10 12:01:33-05 More than 1,000,000 visitors find their way to Piedras Blancas near San Simeon Beach every year to get a look at the once near-extinct elephant seals. Since the pandemic has prevented a nonprofit from educating on-site, they're finding other ways to help. Off Highway 1 near San Simeon, majestic mammals call home. "They're just cuddling," said Waleed Yosufzai, a Virginia resident visiting California, about a group of elephant seals together on the sand. Since March, volunteer docents from the Friends of the Elephant Seal haven't been able to educate visitors on everything elephant seals like they normally do 365 days every year.