Sunday, December 8, 2019
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Bulls arrive at Piedras Blancas
Central Coast visitors during Thanksgiving weekend can count on seeing at least a few full-grown mature bull elephant seals at Piedras Blanca near San Simeon.
The bulls arrive from their northern feeding grounds to stake a claim to the beach. From their sandy vantage above high tide line, they prepare to welcome the pregnant females who will follow in December.
It’s elephant seal birthing and breeding season.
The bulls challenge, and even fight, each other over dominance. Most dominance interactions are resolved without a fight.
One lifts his head and bellows a challenge, or lumbers across the beach to threaten another. The other raises up, willing to fight if necessary, or retreats to fight another day.
The bulls may sense each other’s size from vibrations in the sand, or may size each other up visually.
About 20% of challenges lead to actual fighting.
After they arrive on the beach, they will live off their blubber for as long as 100 days. Fighting takes a lot of energy, which they need to conserve to endure the long fast.
Fights may be resolved by a single strike, or may go on for half an hour.
Eventually, the elephant seals mate. Females come into heat (estrus) and will mate after four weeks of nursing, in January and February.
Dominant male elephant seals known as beachmasters typically have a harem of 30 to 50 females at Piedras Blancas. About 250 bulls come to this rookery.
An elephant seal’s nose — technically, proboscis — starts to grow when the seal is about 5 years old, and continues growing throughout the seal’s life. So nose size is a rough indicator of age for males.
Female elephant seals don’t grow proboscises, resulting in more dog-like faces. Look for longer noses on adult bulls.
Along with big noses, elephant seals develop “chest shields” — thick calloused skin, keratinized with the same material that forms our hair and nails.
The elephant seals rip and tear at those chest shields when they fight, but the thick skin protects them from life-threatening injuries. It bleeds, but it doesn’t tear into open wounds. Look for pink, crinkled skin.
Male elephant seals that lose out in the dominance hierarchy may find solace on other beaches. Some show up in San Simeon Cove, a popular beach for human visitors.
Friends of the Elephant Seal and State Parks have a new volunteer program to help the public stay safe while seals are on the beach.
The seals are legally protected from harassment, which means any kind of human interference.
To become a winter guide and help the seals, register through the Friends of the Elephant Seal website, www.elephantseal.org/docents.htm.
One day of training will be held Saturday, Dec. 7, at Cavalier Plaza in San Simeon. Docents are asked to commit to spending two shifts a month at the cove — 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. — mid-December through March.
Contact Friends of the Elephant Seal at 805-924-1628 or fes@elephantseal.org with questions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)