Adult females and all juveniles return to the beach
More seals are on the beach in May at the Piedras
Blancas elephant seal viewpoint than any other time of the year. Adult females,
returned from their short migration, sleep. Juveniles, both male and female,
have been out to sea all winter. They now fill out the beach crowd. Young males
spar while their elders take advantage of the time to rest and all molt their
skin.
Molting
The obvious change the seals undergo is molting their
skin. The old brown skin and hair peels off in chunks, exposing new skin and
hair underneath. Look for pearly gray seals next to brown and tan seals. Check
out the ones with skin curling off around eyes and nose. Old scars also start peeling
back the molted skin.
The process carries its own distinctive aroma, from all
those mammals shedding skin on the beach. A few of the less thoughtful have
orange feces smeared on their back ends.
Good thing the seals don’t defecate on the beach, or
the smell would chase visitors off the boardwalk. It’s just a few outliers who
add to the smell.
The seals stop foraging for food a day or two before
they arrive, and don’t eat anything while they are on the beach. Their digestive
and metabolic processes change. My observation is that arriving seals often
defecate just before they arrive on the beach, leaving an orange bloom behind
them.
Female migration
The females are undergoing changes as the egg that was
fertilized back during the breeding season now implants in the uterine wall and
begins to develop into an embryo. The process is called delayed implantation.
After fertilization, the egg divides a few times and then pauses.
The process gives the mother time to restore her
weight so that she is strong enough to carry the pregnancy to term.
Starting now, gestation takes about eight months. The
females will leave the beach in a month or so. They will return in January,
after their long migration, to have their pups.
Look for marks, other species
With research projects ramping up at Cal Poly and
other locations adding marks, marked seals are more commonly seen on the beach.
All marks are temporary, since they come off with the molted skin.
Other wildlife share the beach. A Guadalupe fur seal
pup and a California sea lion pup hauled out on the beach recently. Every day
brings different animals and birds to the viewpoint. The elephant seal
viewpoint is easy to access but provides world-class wildlife viewing.
The beach is within Monterey Bay National Marine
Sanctuary. To celebrate 50 years of national marine sanctuaries, NOAA has
compiled a series of Resource Collections. Peruse the many events, photos,
lesson plans, maps, and other educational materials at https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/50/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=GovDelivery.
One covers Ocean Sound and Impact of Noise, https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/education/teachers/ocean-sound/.
The SanctSound Monitoring Project offers a portal that provides downloadable
tools for comparing ocean sound, with six tutorials to help use the data.