Former Santa Maria Resident Pleads Guilty to Elephant Seal Killing

Former Santa Maria resident Jordan Gerbich, 30, admitted to fatally shooting a northern elephant seal — a protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — at a popular haul-out near San Simeon in September 2019. In exchange, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend Gerbich’s prison sentence be cut in half, from one year in federal prison to six months.

Via videoconference, Gerbich admitted that he and an accomplice crept onto the grounds of the popular tourist site with a flashlight and a 45-caliber handgun, which he used to shoot a female elephant seal one time in the head. When the body was discovered by a visitor the next day, the elephant seal’s tail had been hacked off and its chest cavity cut open. Gerbich was not charged with and did not admit to mutilating the elephant seal.