Andrew Dickens Afternoons

It's unclear whether the initial incursion happened stealthily at night or brazenly during the day - though authorities are almost certain the invasion occurred by sea.And federal employees who returned from the month-long partial government shutdown decided that it was probably not worth the effort to relocate the roughly 90 individuals involved. That's because some of them were pregnant or newborns, and all of them were opportunistic elephant seals that have taken over what used to be the tourist area of Drakes Beach, California.Across the nation this week, returning federal workers slogged through backlogs of voice mails, sifted through bursting email inboxes and tried to remember the name of the childhood pet at the beginning of their log-in passwords.At Drakes Beach, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, employees had a much bigger problem. Literally. Some of the elephant seal squatters weigh as much as a car.A colony of nearly 1,500 seals inhabits nearby Chimney Beach, which is protected from binoc