Mexico News Daily covered his 2024 visit to San Felipe, Baja California, where he also returned in the summer of 2025, according to news reports. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) generally spend most of their year at sea and come ashore periodically to rest, molt or breed, sometimes thousands of kilometers from their core range. Officials stress that elephant seals are wild, protected animals that need quiet to rest and molt. Panchito is not to be confused with the much smaller Pacific harbor seals that call Baja California home. With reports from Aristegui Noticias, El Heraldo de México, La Jornada and La Voz de la Frontera