Every winter northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) return to their breeding rookeries in central and northern California. These animals spend the majority of their time foraging at sea, but as with all pinnipeds they must return to land to birth their pups. The breeding site in central California is Piedras Blancas, a few miles north of San Simeon. In the northern part of the state the elephant seals breed at Ano Nuevo, about 20 miles north of Santa Cruz. While elephant seals do occasionally haul out along other beaches, the best places to see them are at the rookeries during the breeding season.
The adult males typically show up first, in late November and early December. They arrive early to set up and defend territories. Adult females arrive mid-December and are herded into harems by the alpha males, who meanwhile continue to fight over territory and dominance. Since the seals’ food is found at sea, all adults and subadults fast while at the rookery. They loll about in the sun, flip sand over themselves, and doze.
For female elephant seals, the first order of business is to give birth to their pups. The pregnant females arrive carrying a pup that was conceived during the previous year’s haul-out. A given female will give birth about a week after her arrival, and pupping season lasts until around mid-January. Pups are born with very dark fur and loose, wrinkly skin, until they fill out and take on the e-seal look of fat sausages. On my visit I saw pups that still had their umbilical cords attached, as well as pups that had been nursing for a while and gotten fat.
Despite the apparent laziness of the seals themselves, a rookery can be a noisy place. Pups and mothers squawk to each other, and males bellow a sort of low-pitched rumble as part of their dominance displays. Listen to the various e-seal vocalizations in this video:
In the right side of this video clip a female e-seal is being forcibly mounted by a male. I say “forcibly” because she does seem to be protesting and trying to get away. Of course, this is all just sexual selection in action–it is in the female’s best interest, in terms of the quality of next year’s pup, to be mated by the strongest male on the beach. Thus if she makes it difficult for him to copulate with her and he still manages to succeed, she can be reasonably certain that the father of her pup is healthy and vigorous.
However, notice that large male on the left. He doesn’t like seeing “his” female being approached by another male. We kept waiting to see if a full-blown altercation would develop, but when all is said and done the animals are pretty lazy and won’t waste energy on fights that aren’t absolutely necessary. That big male on the left made a couple of feints towards the interloper but it didn’t seem that his heart was in it.
All in all it was a fairly peaceful late afternoon at the rookery. We watched a spectacular sunset and then left the e-seals to their own devices on the beach.
