The california populations of the northern elephant seal are descendants from a very small population of seals that was overhunted in the 1890s. heterozygosity in this population would be expected to be due to

The population of Northern elephant seal in California are descendants from a very small population of seals that was over-hunted in the year 1890's. Heterozygosity in this population would be expected to be slight because of a bottleneck effect. Population bottlenecks happen when the size of a population is reduced for at least one generation.