Seal Olympians

 Seal Olympians

Three seals’ long migrations featured in new exhibit

The world’s attention may be on human athletes at the Olympics in Paris, but elephant seal observers are celebrating seal athletes. A new exhibit at the Friends of the Elephant Seal Visitor Center in San Simeon puts three seals on the metaphorical platform, for migrations of more than 6,000 miles over seven months.

The exhibit characterizes them as three human swim champions: Diana after Diana Nyad, Katie after Katie Ledecky, and Trudy after Gertrude Ederle. Diana Nyad is a long-distance open water swimmer who swam from Cuba to Florida in 2013, through stinging jellyfish and sharks. Katie Ledecky is a competitive swimmer who has won seven Olympic gold medals (2012, 2016, and 2020) and 21 world championships. Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926.

Kathy Curtis photo

Two annual migrations

Female elephant seals have the advantage over human swimmers, spending 10 months of the year in the ocean. They swim two annual migrations, a short one and a long one. The short migration, about ten weeks, comes after they wean their pups in the early spring. Elephant seal mothers don’t eat while they are nursing their pups, so they lose about a third of their body weight. It’s physiologically draining.

By the time the pup is big enough to wean, the mother is thin. She needs to regain blubber. She leaves the beach in February or March, returning in April or May. At that time, she stays on the beach for four or five weeks to molt her skin. When she returns to the ocean, it’s for her long migration, seven to eight months. The next time she comes out of the water, it will be to have her pup in January.

What are they doing out there?

All elephant seal females spend those months feeding in the open waters of the North Pacific. But some go far west, 3,200 miles west, to feed. Roxanne Beltran’s research team at University of California Santa Cruz documented the long migrations by tagging female seals. One, nicknamed Diana, was tagged twice, and made the same journey twice.

Female elephant seals have to forage almost constantly to gain weight and support the developing pup. Most forage on small fish in the mesopelagic layer, although about 15 percent dive down to forage on the ocean floor along the continental shelf or at seamounts.

They have to gain enough weight to support them in their travels, and to develop a pup and then carry them through nursing the pup for a month. That’s a lot of blubber.

They share the mesopelagic layer with a few other large species: sperm whales, beaked whales, blue sharks, and salmon sharks. Scientists don’t know much about how they all share this ocean resource.

The New York Times recently published an OpEd on the Ocean Twilight Zone.

Season statistics

The exhibit gives these athletes’ stats on their migrations: How far they went, how long they were at sea, how much weight they gained. With one exception, they each did it while pregnant, having a pup every year.

Trudy and Diana spent 223 days at sea. Katie made her trip, to a point 3,436 miles west, and back in only 185 days.

Diana gained the most weight, 448 lbs.  Katie gained 279 lbs. and Trudy gained 293 lbs.

What’s out there?

They all went to the same general location, but probably didn’t interact with each other. Seals are solitary.

“Although there are a lot of elephant seals, maybe 240,000 total, they are foraging in a HUGE volume of the ocean,” Beltran wrote in an email. “so they likely don't encounter each other often.”

Perfect timing

The tricky part is heading back to the beach in time to give birth to the pup. They have to find their way around the open ocean, catch and eat enough fish to gain weight and support the developing pup, and then turn around and find their way to the beach to have that pup. They give birth within five days of returning to the beach.

Beltran’s research team found that the seals have a “map sense” that allows them to know how far they are from that home beach, and how to manage their time, at about 100 miles a day, to get back.

“We found that the seals’ abilities to adjust the timing of their return migration is based on the perception of space and time, which further elucidates the mechanisms behind their astonishing navigational feats,” the academic paper’s summary states.

No one yet knows how they do it. Geomagnetic, celestial, acoustic, or olfactory senses may be involved.

For now, observers use electronic tagging to learn what the seals are doing, and welcome them back to the beach when they arrive in January, in time to have their pups.

August seal viewing

The bulls, fully mature ones and younger ones, are on the beach at Piedras Blancas. They are molting their skin, the annual shedding. FES docents have samples of shed skin for visitors to handle.

Bulls are generally quiet at this time. With no females to fight over, they spend their days resting on the sand.

Monarch's first migration

Monarch’s long journey

One pup returns from a year at sea

Researchers don’t often put electronic tags on elephant seal pups. At more than $3,000 per satellite tag, losses are just too high to risk expensive technology. But in one case, it paid off big time. One tagged pup not only survived, she returned with new and exciting data. 

Photo taken under NMFS permit 27514.

The first migration

Elephant seals are migratory, swimming north along the coastline as far as Alaska and out into the northern Pacific. After pups are weaned, they remain on the beach for a month or so, building up their breath-holding and swimming skills. But they have nothing to eat after their mothers leave them. They live on the blubber they gained while they were nursing. Weaned pups make their first migration alone, without adult guidance. They leave the beach in the spring, and those that survive return in the fall.

Although pups haven’t been tracked on that first migration, the accepted wisdom was that they didn’t get as far as adults, to Alaska, on that first migration. Cal Poly Associate Professor  Heather Liwanag’s research set out to see how far they did go. They learned that while most don’t get that far, at least one did.

Pups tagged at Vandenberg and San Nicolas

Katie Saenger, one of Professor Liwanag’s master's students, tagged five pups at the Vandenberg Space Force Base beach and five pups on San Nicolas Island in April 2023. Their electronic tags allowed the researchers to follow the pups in real time.

Photo taken under NMFS permit 27514.

The researchers chose nicknames for the seals from local wildlife: Frog, Plover, Goby. Monarch’s name turned out to be especially apt. Monarch butterflies are also long-distance migrators.

Tracking that first migration

Nine of the pups stayed conservatively close, migrating along the California-Mexico coast. The team retrieved a device from one at King Range National Conservation Area, near Cape Mendocino in Northern California, and one from Año  Nuevo, north of Santa Cruz. Another was tracked to San Francisco Bay, but the beach he hauled out on in the Farallon Islands was inaccessible to humans.

One of the Vandenberg seals, Monarch, swam north and kept on going. 

Team members and other elephant seal observers watched her progress. Without guidance, pups somehow find their way. They don’t swim across the surface. They dive down and come back up, making forward progress. Females like Monarch may feed along the way, snapping up small fish.

Monarch swims, and swims

Watchers were excited to follow the signals coming from Monarch’s tracking device. She was doing so great! Going farther than previous research led them to believe pups would travel. Go, Monarch!

Her up-and-down zig-zagging indicated that she was finding food in those cold Alaskan waters. Out to the edges of the Aleutian Islands, nearly to Russia.

On October 5, 2023, after six months at sea, she turned south and headed for California. All seemed fine until October 26. Monarch’s transmitter went silent. The bad news for seal pups is, that usually means they met their fate in the jaws of a white shark. Thus goes the cycle of ocean life.

But it wasn’t. The transmitter's battery had failed, but Monarch hadn’t. She was still swimming back. A scientist taking a bird survey saw her on May 12, hale and hearty.

It’s Monarch!

Julie Howar, Senior Marine Ecologist and GIS Specialist from Point Blue Conservation, was performing bird surveys at Vandenberg when she saw two elephant seals wearing transmitters on their heads on the beach. One was this year’s weanling, Aurora, who had not yet left the beach after being tagged in April 2024. The other was a juvenile.

Photo by Julie Howar.

Identifying elephant seals is a challenge. Because they molt their skin every year, dyed marks fall away with the skin. This young seal had no dye marks, but she had a flipper tag that was partially visible. Dr. Howar used her spotting scope to take a photo. She was able to read a couple of digits on the seal’s flipper tag. She reported the sighting to Liwanag.

It was Monarch!

“It was amazing that Julie knew what to look for and reached out to me!” Liwanag said.

Surviving the first migration is significant, since only about half of the pups do. They usually gain little, if any, weight. Monarch went a step better: she gained 73 pounds. The fishing in Alaska was good.

“We were so excited when we figured out it was her,” said Liwanag. “She is the first seal to demonstrate that weanlings can go as far as Alaska, which we did not expect.”

Retrieving the data collection devices

Left to right: Molly Murphy (Cal Poly graduate student), Katie Saenger (Cal Poly graduate student), Kate Riordan (Cal Poly MS graduate), Dr. Heather Harris (TMMC), Liz Eby (TMMC), Dr. Heather Liwanag (Cal Poly), Lauren Campbell (TMMC), Elise Fiskum (Cal Poly undergraduate), Kenzie Davidson (Cal Poly graduate student), Rhys Evans (Biologist, Vandenberg Space Force Base), Jenna Camargo (Cal Poly undergraduate). Photo by Dave Clendenen.

The Cal Poly researchers pulled together a team to retrieve the devices on Monarch’s head and back. Master’s student Katie Saenger led the team, since Monarch is part of her thesis project. Liwanag and graduate student Maria Lopez-Neri joined her, along with veterinarian Heather Harris and veterinary technician Lauren Campbell from The Marine Mammal Center, and Vandenberg biologists Rhys Evans, Nick Todd, and Zia Walton.

“Accessing the beach at Vandenberg is always an adventure,” Liwanag said.

Todd is an experienced climber, skills he uses as an ornithologist specializing in falcons. He guided the group in setting up a rope to help them climb the bluff to the beach.

“The last part is especially steep, and it's best to move down backward -- not quite rappelling, but definitely not just hiking,” Liwanag said. “It is a challenge to get our team and all our gear down the hill (and back up!), especially with our heavy weighing gear.”

Photo by Molly Murphy

Weighing a seal involves a tripod with a scale. The seal is lifted in a tarp to be weighed. Nothing involving elephant seals is easy.

On the beach with the seal, The Marine Mammal Center veterinary team, Harris and Campbell, administered the sedative and monitored the seal while she was sedated during the tag removal. The amount of sedative needed is based on the seal’s weight. Monarch was cooperative enough that the team could weigh her before they gave her the injection. A safe dose calms the animal to allow researchers to handle her safely, without endangering the seal. It’s a delicate balance.

The zip ties were cut. Success! Devices in hand.

Analyzing Monarch’s data

Back at the lab, they downloaded the data. Preliminary results show that Monarch dove as deeply as 600m (2,000 feet), with many dives between 400 (1,300 feet) and 500m (1,600 feet) deep.

“These are impressive dive depths for a young seal pup!” Liwanag said.

Saenger’s master’s thesis project focuses on that first foraging migration of newly weaned northern elephant seals. The paths reported by the tracking devices map out where they travel, which can then be related to ocean factors that adult seals are known to use to navigate, such as sea surface temperature, the ocean floor, including the Alaskan coastal shelf and the seamounts along her return trip, and productivity.

“We simply don't know where these seals go on their very first migration, or how they decide where to go,” said Liwanag.

Other possible influences are whether the seal is born in a new or an established rookery, and whether they are male or female. Adult female and male seals migrate to different places, with different foraging strategies.

“We know the adults have very different migration patterns between males and females, but we expect that these differences may not be as pronounced at this age.” Liwanag said. “So far, we see that there is a lot of individual variation in migration patterns. This makes sense, because the seals have to find their own way with no instruction from anyone. They don't learn from their mom, and they don't travel together.”

Asleep on the beach

After removing the devices, the team watched over Monarch until she recovered from the sedative.

“Monarch moved back near her original napping spot and seemed to be doing just fine,” Liwanag said.

Welcome back, Monarch.

Activities conducted and photos taken under NMFS permits 22187-04 and 27514.

Satellite and VHF tags

The pups get satellite and Very High Frequency (VHF) radio transmitter tags.

The satellite tag is zip-tied to a polyester mesh glued to the seal’s head with marine epoxy.

The satellite tag on her head sends signals to the satellites when the seal comes up for a breath and her head is out of the water. The batteries on Monarch, and other seals in that 2023 cohort, ran out of juice and stopped transmitting. These young seals may be spending more time at the surface than adult seals, running the batteries down. The researchers adjusted for that possibility in 2024 by programming tags to transmit less frequently, extending battery life.

A VHF radio transmitter is zip-tied to polyester mesh on the seal’s back.

“We use that to home in on the exact location on the beach,” Liwanag said.  “We only want to hear that signal when the seal is completely hauled out.”

The polyester mesh patches will fall away as Monarch molts her skin.

“That’s why we hustled down there to retrieve her tags as soon as we could,” Liwanag said. “She was in the process of molting off those patches, and we were worried that the tide might take the tags away if she molted them onto the beach.”

 

Elephant seal Necklace is "a happy girl" after plastic strap is removed

 Freed from the plastic packing strap that was slowly strangling her, the elephant seal known as “Necklace” rested peacefully on the beach at Piedras Blancas this week before apparently leaving for her annual migration. 

While she was still there, wounds from the plastic strap that had been wrapped around her neck were visibly healing — though she’ll always have a scar. 

“She showed her scar and waved her tags to the UCI school group this morning,” Friends of the Elephant Seal docent Phil Arnold posted to the docent’s group chat on Tuesday. “I think she’s smiling!” another docent, Mary Forbes said. Arnold agreed. “I think Mary is right — she’s a happy girl,” he wrote. 

Elephant seal Necklace’s wounds were healing well after she had a plastic packing strap removed from around her neck in early May. Michael O’Bannon 

In a joint effort from The Marine Mammal Center and Friends of the Elephant Seal, a piece of packing plastic that had become entangled around Necklace’s neck was removed last week. The piece of plastic was hampering her ability to forage for food and slowly starving her until volunteers staged a rescue at Piedras Blancas to remove the item. 

Though she has since appeared to have left the San Luis Obispo County beach, docents and visitors alike have been curious about what is up next for the now popular animal. 

WILL INJURED ELEPHANT SEAL HAVE A PUP? 

Though she appears to have been healing happily, it is unclear whether Necklace was pregnant or could successfully carry a pup to term. Pregnancy for seals starts after they finish nursing the previous pup. Necklace was on the beach in October with the juvenile seals, but she’s large enough to be considered an adult. She wasn’t sighted at Piedras Blancas during the 2024 breeding season, but it is possible she may have had a pup on another beach. 

More than 97% of females over the age of four years get pregnant every year, so she may have gotten pregnant for the first time. 

“If the seal will be at least four years old next winter, it is highly likely she is already pregnant,” Patrick Robinson, director of the Ano Nuevo Reserve, said in an email. 

If she mated back in February or March, Necklace may have a fertilized egg that has been dormant since then. Elephant seal pregnancies start that way, with a few cell divisions of the fertilized egg, becoming an embryo. Development then stops, with implantation of the embryo delayed several weeks, until after the seal molts. 

Necklace, meanwhile, was observed with her molt completed this past week. 

Necklace, an elephant seal with plastic wrapped around her neck, rests on the beach at high tide on May 6, 2024.  Photo by Laurie Miller © The Marine Mammal Center 

When the pregnant females return to the ocean after molting in May and June, they are on their long migration, until January. They spend that time feeding, supporting the developing embryo, and gaining blubber to sustain them through birth and nursing. Necklace wasn’t sighted on the beach after Tuesday, so she may have already left on her long migration. 

Females feed in the mesopelagic layer of the North Pacific, 660-3,300 feet deep. It’s a rich layer of fish, but the fish are only 3 inches long. To gain enough blubber on such small fish, females feed all day. They sleep less than four hours, and make as many as 60 dives to keep eating. 

Necklace’s low weight may make her condition too poor to support an embryo. Her body is depleted, so even if she did have one, her body could resorb the embryo while she recovers her health and gains weight. 

This is the plastic packing strip that was choking Necklace, a young elephant seal on the beach at Piedras Blancas on May 6, 2024. Heather Harris The Marine Mammal Center

WANT TO SPOT NECKLACE ON BEACH NEXT YEAR? LOOK FOR HER UNIQUE SCAR 

Many eyes will be looking for her in January, when the females return to have their pups. If she doesn’t have a pup this year, she’ll probably get pregnant then and have a pup the following year. 

“We’re happy to see a seal get disentangled,” Robinson said. “We had a very similar seal up here that we disentangled last month. ” 

Plastic pollution is a hazard for all marine species. To help avoid other situations like Necklace’s, you can use less plastic, cut circular plastic rings before discarding and support organizations such as The Marine Mammal Center that are working to reduce plastic pollution. 

Necklace will likely sport the scars from her run-in with a plastic strap for the rest of her life. But those scars will help docents and visitors to identify her in the future. In the meantime, Friends of the Elephant Seal offers programs to school field trips at all levels. 

On Tuesday, Arnold spoke to Dr. Amy Henry and 19 graduate students from the University of California Irvine campus. They’d been “studying all things ocean” at Rancho Marino Reserve for several days. It’s become an annual field trip for the class. “They are a great bunch of students, with lots of questions for Dave Lawrence and me,” Arnold said. “In the past we have gone tag hunting, but this year didn’t lend itself very well to that so we talked seals a lot. They are fun to work with.” 

Friends of the Elephant Seal also has a Speakers’ Bureau that offers free presentations to service organizations, clubs, libraries and other groups. 

Entangled elephant seal rescued

She was slowly starving. A team of workers saved her.

The morning was clear and calm, with a light breeze that whispered across Piedras Blancas as hundreds of elephant seals slept or shifted against each other on the beach. 

Quietly, a team from The Marine Mammal Center climbed down onto the sand to help one seal in particular: a young female with a plastic strap cinched so tightly around her head it was cutting deep wounds into her blubber. 

The seal had a band around her neck. Laurie Miller The Marine Mammal Center 

The strap had clearly impacted her ability to forage. She was thin — even bony — and in generally poor condition. Friends of the Elephant Seal docents had been observing the seal for more than a week. They took photos and reported her location to the Center. 

They recognized her from last fall, when she was photographed in October with that same strap around her head. A team tried to reach her then, but she escaped back to the ocean when she saw them coming. 

It’s not always easy to help a wild animal. 

Now, months later, the plastic had cut deeper into her blubber. She’d lost weight, and her condition was more dire. If the strap stayed on, it was clear she’d continue to suffer until she died. So Aliah Meza, operations manager of The Marine Mammal Center’s Morro Bay facility, began making a plan to rescue her. 

“We had a second chance,” Meza said. And they wouldn’t squander it. 

GROUP STRATEGIZES HOW BEST TO HELP ENTANGLED ELEPHANT SEAL 

Coming up with a plan to rescue a wild animal is a lesson in anticipating what might go wrong. 

“We wanted to plan for good scenarios, as well as if things didn’t go our way,” Meza said. “We aligned everything we could think of.” 

The general plan was to sedate the seal, look at the entanglement, remove it, take care of the wound and then watch as she recovered to ensure everything had gone OK. 

The day of, the team arrived at the viewpoint at 7:30 a.m., but strategized until 10 a.m. before going down to the beach. 

“We can have a great laid-out plan, and then she moves, and we have to re-evaluate,” Meza said. 

Additionally, going onto the beach to rescue an entangled seal requires special permission from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency with responsibility for wildlife in national marine sanctuaries. Permission depends on a variety of factors, such as where the seals are in their annual life cycle. 

In May, adult females and juveniles of both sexes are on the beach to molt, though no nursing pups who might be separated from their mothers are on the beach at that time. No matter what, seals would have to be disturbed to clear a path to the entangled seal. 

“The only reason we were allowed to do this is because it’s a human-caused entanglement,” Meza said. 

THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER TEAM MAKES ITS MOVE 

On the day of, the six members of the team approached the seal from the ocean side. Two carried herding boards and shuffled the other seals away to isolate the entangled seal. The other four were directly involved in caring for the target seal. 

Heather Harris, associate veterinarian for the Center’s operations in Morro Bay, was there to sedate the seal and treat her wounds. 

“We used our boards to form a path to our target animal,” Harris said. “The other animals moved aside and settled nearby, so that was perfect.” 

Seems elephant seals can sometimes cooperate. 

Marine Mammal Center team members use herding boards to shoo oher elephant seals away so they can help Necklace at Piedras Blancas May 6, 2024. Laurie Miller, The Marine Mammal Center

Meanwhile, Harris had to estimate the seal’s weight to calculate the correct dose to sedate her. Dosage is based on weight, so she consulted with other Center staff members to make a guess as to what Necklace weighed. 

Ultimately they found her weight was below the normal range. On the Center’s scoring system for condition, Necklace was in the lowest classification. Lacking adequate blubber to fill out her neck gave her a “peanut head” of emaciation. Her spine and pelvic bones were prominent, and she had a steep angle from her shoulders to her pelvis. 

“All those characteristics made us classify her as on the very thin end of the spectrum,” Harris said. 

Once she got close enough, Harris used a long syringe on a pole to inject a drug to reduce pain and stress temporarily, long enough to remove the entanglement. 

“She reacted very well,” Harris said. “It was very smooth. She became quiet enough that we could approach her.” 

There would be no repeat of last year’s return to the ocean. 

Next, they covered her eyes with a towel, to help keep her calm, and monitored her heart rate and breathing while she was sedated. All her vital signs were stable. 

Necklace, an elephant seal with plastic wrapped around her neck, was on the beach at high tide on May 6, 2024. Heather Harris The Marine Mammal Center 

ELEPHANT SEAL NOT THE FIRST TO HAVE TO BE RESCUED FROM PLASTIC TANGLE 

At that point, Harris was able to find the offending entanglement and cut it off. It turned out to be a plastic packing strip. 

Plastic trash is especially harmful to marine wildlife, because it is so strong and long-lasting. The plastic strap wrapped around Necklace, for example, would never have broken on its own. 

She isn’t alone in her experience. Green Tie, a mature bull, had two around his neck, giving him unique scars that made him recognizable after the straps were removed. He went on to become a beachmaster at Piedras Blancas. 

All plastic trash is dangerous to marine life, but the unique nature and rigidity of plastic packing straps make them especially hazardous to seals and sea lions. Birds, turtles and other marine animals can also get entangled in plastic beverage can holders — often a death sentence. 

Because of that, it’s recommended people cut all circular plastic such as packing straps and beverage can six-pack holders before throwing them away. 

“As coastal stewards of our environment who live along the coast, it’s important for us to take responsibility for our trash,” Harris said. “This is trash that ended up in the marine environment. Taking responsibility for our trash, taking time to pick up trash when we see it, and not waiting for someone else to do that, participating in beach clean-ups, and joining rescue organizations like The Marine Mammal Center as a volunteer, really allows people to participate in this process and save individuals.” 

WHAT IS HEALING PROCESS FOR RESCUED ELEPHANT SEAL? 

With the strap out of the way, Harris examined the wounds to determine how deep they were and whether any vital structures were injured, such as her airway or any bones. 

“We were very pleased to see that it was not impacting anything vital,” Harris said. “It was just through the blubber and into the muscle.” 

Another stroke of luck: The wound wasn’t infected, so Harris didn’t have to give the antibiotic that she had a permit to administer. 

“We’re very careful about giving antibiotics because of the development of antibiotic resistance in the environment,” she said. “We want to be very deliberate when we’re doing that. We didn’t see any indication for doing that on this animal.” 

As the sedation wore off, Necklace woke up. In her elephant seal way, she flipped sand on herself and settled back onto the beach where she will be left to continue healing. 

“They heal very well in salt water,” Harris said. “It’s the best natural treatment there is.” 

Necklace will likely remain on the beach for a couple more weeks, completing the catastrophic molt that’s common for young seals. During that process, the skin peels off in chunks to expose new skin. 

Scars stay forever, though. Necklace’s unique scars will make her identifiable in the future. 

Harris also attached numbered orange tags to her flippers. Orange tags identify marine mammals that have been rehabilitated, to distinguish them from research animals, which get colored tags identifying their birthplace. Scars can be so deep that it looks as if the seal is still entangled. The orange tags signal that the entanglement has been removed. 

Meanwhile, the other adult females on the beach are pregnant. Although Necklace is mature enough to be pregnant, she probably isn’t, because of her emaciation and poor condition, Harris said. 

“She probably couldn’t support a pregnancy, but we don’t know,” Dr. Harris said. “We’re very hopeful that she’ll be able to return to a productive life as a female elephant seal.” 

This is the plastic packing strip that was choking Necklace, a young elephant seal on the beach at Piedras Blancas on May 6, 2024. Heather Harris The Marine Mammal Center 

RESCUE ‘TOOK A VILLAGE,’ ORGANIZER SAYS 

Harris and other Center volunteers and staff will continue to monitor her, as will Cal Poly Team Ellie students under the supervision of Heather Liwanag. 

“We’re just so happy that there’s Friends of the Elephant Seal docents up there who are keeping their eyes on all these animals, especially on her,” Harris said. “Lots of eyes out there looking for her.” 

Visitors helped, too. Karen Friedmann of San Jose visited the viewpoint the Thursday before the rescue. She has expertise in wildlife photography and took photos with her long lens camera that showed the right side of Necklace’s head, which helped Center staff plan the rescue.

Karen Friedmann visited the viewpoint and took photos that helped the team make a plan. (Karen Friedmann photo)

“It really does take a village,” Meza said. “All that information helped us create a better plan and make us feel a lot more safe.” 

Necklace may be difficult to identify among thousands of seals at Piedras Blancas, but the viewpoint is always open. Visitors can see her and the rest of the seals as they molt their skin in May. Friends of the Elephant Seals docents even have samples of shed skin for visitors to handle. 

“The stars were aligned for us on this one,” Harris added. “We really celebrate those moments, because this is a human-caused injury. We take this especially seriously. We want to intervene when we can and use our expertise to help the situation and help the animal.” 

BECOME A VOLUNTEER 

The Marine Mammal Center and Friends of the Elephant Seal are always looking for volunteers. Find out how to participate at their websites.

“People can make a difference with their own lives, their own habits, but also joining a group like this, they can be on the front lines and feel like they are making a difference,” Harris said. 

Volunteers can serve in many capacities. Teams are on call to rescue stranded mammals, as well as providing support services. Friends of the Elephant Seal docents have regular training programs so they can educate the public, as well as positions serving in the San Simeon Visitor Center.

Pups wean, their first steps to independence

 They prepare for their first migration

Born in just the past two months, elephant seal pups at Piedras Blancas are getting ready to set out on their first migration. They are ready to launch.

Fat and sleepy

Weanling pups are easy to recognize. They are fat, even roly-poly. They were born all black, but now are countershaded, light on the belly and dark on the back. They will have that color pattern for the rest of their lives.

 

Weaning is a major transition in their lives. They go from gaining weight fast, from 75 pounds at birth to over 200 pounds in a month, to no food at all. Long fasts, periods of not eating, are a feature of elephant seal life. This is their first fast. They need their blubber to get them through to the next stage, migration.

Adult seals breeding drama

Pups congregate in groups, called pods, on the beach. They stay out of the way of the adults, who are still in the drama of breeding. Bulls trumpet and fight, females bawl. Weanlings stay out of the way and sleep.

 

As the mothers come to the end of lactation, they are at their thinnest. Their blubber has been metabolized into milk, feeding those chubby weanlings. Neither they nor the bulls have had anything to eat since they arrived on the beach.

 

Females come into estrus as they wean their pups. They are then ready to mate with the bulls. That’s when the bulls get competitive. Earlier battles were over territory. Now, they battle over breeding. 

Look for bulls raising their heads to stare at each other. One or the other will make a move, and one may back off from a fight. It’s called dominance interaction, displacement. From the viewing area, visitors can see which bull is dominant. 

If neither backs down, they’ll battle. The loser may leave the beach entirely, finding another beach to recover. Deaths are rare. Both live to fight, and breed, another day.

 

Swim School

Although the weanlings are quiet, for the next eight to 12 weeks their bodies will undergo changes that prepare them to face their lives in the open ocean. They will lose some of their blubber. They’ll finish growing teeth, so they can hunt their own food.

They venture into the surf to practice diving, swimming and holding their breath. Weaned pups learn to hold their breath around six minutes, some as long as 12 minutes. That will help them stay underwater and dive deep enough to catch food. They are on their own now.

They are more likely to be in the water at night, so early mornings and late afternoons are the best time to see them splash around and put their heads underwater to hold their breath. Most will leave the beach on their first migration by the end of April.

Watch a video on the Friends of the Elephant SealsYouTube channel.

Bachelor beaches

Few bachelor bulls have come to Hearst Memorial Beach at San Simeon Cove this year. They may have gone to other beaches, such as the north beach at the Piedras Blancas viewpoint and other points north.

State Parks tours

During this exciting season, February through March, State Parks is offering tours at the Arroyo Laguna beach. Tours are available 9 am on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Tickets are $13 per person. Meet at the parking lot, 2.25 miles north of the Hearst Castle Entrance and south of the Piedras Blancas viewpoint. 

Dress for conditions, walking on uneven rocky and sandy ground, possibly muddy. Wear sturdy, close-toed shoes. Dress in warm layers. 

Bring cameras and binoculars. Call 805-776-2564 or check the website for information.

Speakers Bureau

If your organization would like to learn more about the seals Friends of the Elephant Seal offers free speakers. To arrange a speaker, call the FES office, (805) 924-1628 or request a speaker through the website/. The Speaker’s Bureau Coordinator will respond and set up a date.

 

 

Smithsonian magazine

Smithsonian magazine focused on the role of Friends of the Elephant Seal in creating this safe viewing space for people to learn about the seals without disturbing them.

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/northern-elephant-seals-learn-to-dive-deeply-quickly-their-southern-relatives-take-their-time-180983590/?fbclid=IwAR00uBv6mfPLfHTCnu3MhnXiBmbMVf3aJoZDgSAH4N1t6pBOV8ueVXAaC_w_aem_AV_84Ws3JwFlhr13QuZgayfK_yj1q-VTTFuI6LlpUfWbasEUAb7mKGB9Dq8YkGXctS0

Just Animals Podcast

I did a podcast about Elephant Seals with Elle and Guy Schwartz of Just Animals. It was fun! 

Watch it here. 

Weanlings on the beach. Looking good!

Pups grow fast

From newborn to weaned in a month

High tides have taken their toll on newborn elephant seal pups at the Piedras Blancas viewpoint, but hundreds survive. They grow fast on high-fat milk. Every day, more weaned pups are left on the beach. Their mothers leave them to manage on their own.

Fat weanlings

That’s not a problem for the weanlings. They are fat and sturdy, making the transition to independent life. As they mature, their bodies change from rapidly gaining weight to eating nothing, and living off that blubber. They grow from 75 pounds at birth to over 200 a month later. Visitors can estimate the age of the pups by size alone.  

They fast for the first time. All elephant seals have two long fasts every year in their annual cycle, while they are on the beach.

Their mothers are finished with their fast and ready to start feeding. They ate nothing while nursing the pup. They are thin, and need to return to the ocean to forage and gain the blubber that sustains, protects and insulates them. They will return in six or eight weeks, their healthy weight restored from nearly constant foraging.

This mother has given her blubber to her pup, who is almost as round as she is. She's ready to return to the ocean to feed.

Bulls, mothers, pups

Some females are still arriving at the beach to give birth, while other mothers have completed their maternal duties. Females mate with bulls before they leave the beach. Mating can be noisy, with the female barking and flapping around. Other bulls may take interest and chase the bull attempting to breed. Fights break out. Visitors see a wide range of development at the viewpoint.

Gulls are part of the beach ecosystem. They gather to consume the afterbirth, and clean up any pups that died. This one insisted on stealing milk while a pup nursed.

This gull annoyed both mother and pup by sneaking in to steal milk

One pup at a time

Elephant seal mothers have only a single pup. Since they don’t eat while they are nursing, they don’t have adequate reserves to feed multiple pups. It’s common for pups to nurse on mothers other then their own, though. Some mothers tolerate it better than others. Often mothers have several pups around them. Only one is hers.

This mother tolerates extra pups nursing. Around 80 percent of pups nurse on more than one mother. 

Mothers whose pups were washed away by high tides may adopt a pup, or at least be willing to let a hungry one nurse. Inexperienced mothers can become better mothers.

Pups are at risk if they get separated form their mothers. Mother-pup separation is the most frequent case of pup death, although over 90 percent of the pups born at Piedras Blancas survive.
Watching a pup search for its mother is heart-rending, but often a persistent pup will find its mother – or some mother willing to nurse it.

Weanling pods

Weaned pups congregate in groups called pods, out of the main breeding areas, along the base of the cliffs. Look for rotund seals with black skin peeling off. They shed the black coat they were born with after they are weaned. It reveals their first countershaded coat, dark on the back and light on the belly.

The fat weaner on the right has already shed his black newborn coat. His companion is in the process of getting that more mature countershading.

As the adults leave, weaned pups have more space to gradually make their way to the water. Their next developmental task is to learn to swim and dive. They are more likely to be in the water at night, so early mornings and late afternoons are the best time to see them splash around and put their heads underwater to hold their breath. Most will leave the beach on their first migration by the end of April.

King Tides

King Tides will inundate the beach again February 9. Fat weaned pups will be safer than newborns. Most of the seals are farther away from the water’s edge, but high tides always threaten some pups. The Coastal Commission encourages the public to document the extent of King Tides with photographs and share them with the Commission. 

My photos of February 9’s King Tide at Piedras Blancas, Hearst State Beach, San Simeon Cove, San Simeon Wastewater Treatment Plant, Arroyo del Padre Juan, Leffingwell Landing, and Santa Rosa Creek are posted on the Coastal Commission’s map.