Young seals arrive for Haul-Out
Construction doesn’t faze them
Seals arrive daily on the beach at Piedras Blancas. They are
young, both males and females. It’s the Fall Haul-Out, a rest for the young
seals between migrations. They’ll continue arriving through October.
Seals fast for the four to six weeks they are on the beach during
this autumn retreat. They rely on their blubber to meet their nutritional
needs. They have the beach and the surf to themselves, before the adult bulls
begin arriving around Thanksgiving for the breeding season. Some may stay on
the beach into December.
Heavy equipment
This year, they are accompanied by construction crews. The
culvert under the north boardwalk collapsed last January, during the big
atmospheric river storm. State parks workers are replacing it. Seals remain
nearby, ignoring the workers, who have fenced off their work area.
They will turn to the south boardwalk to replace a culvert
after the north boardwalk is reopened. Part of the north boardwalk is open,
from the north parking lot. That parking lot also leads to the Boucher Trail,
two miles to the Piedras Blancas Light Station. Several points along that trail
overlook elephant seal beaches.
The light station is open for tours by reservation only on
Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays. Book ahead through recreation.gov.
Boisterous boys
The young males are willing to spar with each other, on the
sand and in the water. It’s the nature of young guys to roughhouse. Some nose
around young females, but they aren’t willing to mate. The ones on the beach
are too young, and they have an estrus breeding cycle. Like dogs, they only
mate when they are ready.
The seals take a rest between their two annual migrations. The young seals will leave the beach as adult bulls arrive in late November, migrating north and west until time to return to the beach to molt their skin in May. They left the beach in June, returning now. In between, they are diving and feeding, diving and feeding.
Males and females have different feeding strategies. Males migrate north along the coastline, diving to feed at the bottom along the continental shelf. Females migrate to the open ocean, feeding on prey they encounter there.
Males eat bottom-dwelling fish such as dogfish and hagfish,
not targets for human tables. Females eat small fish in the mesopelagic layer.
They don’t compete with fishermen, so elephant seals aren’t in conflict with
them they way sea lions are.
Adult females
Occasionally a mature female, not pregnant, comes on to the
beach during Fall Haul-Out. Nearly all mature female seals are pregnant every
year, but some skip a year. Exactly why they aren’t pregnant is a subject of
active research at Ano Nuevo Reserve and Sonoma State University. Tracking
individual seals and understanding what’s going on is difficult, but
researchers are making progress.
“We had our first adult female satellite
tag recovery procedure last week,” Patrick Robinson, director of the Ano Nuevo
Reserve said in an email. “She was not pregnant, but otherwise seemed
healthy. We're still learning about these seals that skip breeding!”
