Welcome back, bulls!

Time to find out who’s the baddest seal on the beach

The first mature bull elephant seal arrived at Piedras Blancas November 15. “He came in with a whisper,” said Cynthia Coulter, a Friends of the Elephant Seal docent who watched him. He’s the harbinger of the breeding season.

The site is free, open all day, plenty of space to accommodate holiday visitors. Come out and see how many of his cousins have joined him.

The biggest and the toughest

Identify bulls by their noses (technically, proboscis), and chest shields. Fully mature bulls have long noses that have a notch across near the top.  When the seal is lying down, the chest shield wraps around the neck to the level of the eyes or further.

Like the nose, the chest shield starts to develop at puberty and continues to expend throughout the rest of their life.  Though males often attack each other’s neck, the chest shield develops whether or not they fight.

Compare noses and chest shields with other seals on the beach. Some are large individuals, but their shorter, smooth noses and less developed chest shields betray their junior status.

 

Smaller seals are juveniles, still enjoying their fall haul-out rest. They will soon return to the ocean and leave the beach to the breeding seals. They will be at sea, eating and growing, until April and May.

 

Dominance hierarchy

This first arrival will be ready to take on other bulls to establish the dominance hierarchy. Those relationships govern the beach during the breeding season. The bulls will have settled who bests who by the time the pregnant females begin arriving in December, although it may change as bulls fight through March.

The most dominant bulls, at the top of the hierarchy, are most likely to get to breed, so there’s a lot at stake when bulls fight. It’s not just who won, but who gets the prize.

They recognize each other

Bulls learn which ones they have beaten and which have beaten them. Elephant seal researcher Burney Le Boeuf concludes, “It is clear that they have the mental capacity to remember scores of competitors.” They may look a lot alike to us, but each one is an individual to his competitors.

A bull who loses a fight, even if he has been dominant to others, falls way down the hierarchy. He may be so demoralized that he drops out of the competition for breeding for the rest of the season.

Females arrive in December

The females have been feeding and gestating their offspring since May. The first female usually arrived in early December. Her pup was born December 10, at the far south end of the boardwalk. Follow the crowd!