Pups start life at Piedras Blancas
High tides, tsunami threaten newborns
The beach is full of mothers and pups, from skinny newborns to chubby weaners, in January. High tides, including King Tides, the highest of the year, were made worse by waves pushed ahead by a tsunami. Pups face the rigors of ocean life from the moment they are born.
Over 5,000 pups will be born in the rookery, which
extends north and south from the Piedras Blancas viewpoint. Daytime births are
common. Luck plays a part in being in the right place at the right time. A
visitor stopped me on Saturday to ask which seal would have her pup next. My
eye wandered across the seals below us, to see a pup emerging from one just
below us. I recorded this video.
Mother-pup separation
Pups may get separated from their mothers. The usual
noise and confusion of life in the harem, the group of female seals over which
an alpha bull presides, is distracting under any circumstances. Other mothers
are competitors for space, each willing to fight for her own pup. Bulls charge
each other, regardless of the mothers and pups in their path.
Add high tides and the potential for mother and pup
getting separated only gets worse.
A pup without a mother may die. Separation is the most
usual cause of pup death. However, mother and pup have ways to overcome even this
danger.
Pups and mothers bond to each other, but that bond can
be disrupted by life on the busy, noisy beach. Some pups don’t survive.
Pups have a distress call that all mothers respond to.
Mothers have a pup-attraction call, described as a “warbling, yodel-like
vocalization.” Observations at Ano Nuevo have found that about two-thirds of
the time, mothers find their pups. In some cases, the pup finds the mother. If
the pup calling isn’t hers, the mother may ignore it, attack it, or adopt it.
Mothers nursing other pups
Mothers may tolerate other pups nursing. Northern
elephant seals do not have twins, but sometimes a mother allows more than one
pup to nurse. While each mother has only enough milk to nurse a single pup to
adequate weaning weight, around 80 percent of pups nurse at let occasionally on
other mothers.
When a pup dies, its mother may adopt an orphan, or she
may share a pup with another mother.
Circle of life
In the circle of life on the beach, their remains are
consumed by gulls and, when the beach is less crowded, buzzards. Condors from
the San Simeon flock may be attracted to them. The condors have not yet made
use of this source of lead-free food, but 2022 may be the year one brings the
flock to the beach. Lead contamination from hunters’ ammunition is the most
frequent cause of condor death.
Tsunami
The tsunami was triggered by the eruption of a volcano
in Tonga, more than 9,000 miles across the Pacific. NOAA’s GOES West satellite
recorded the event from space, https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-erupts-again
Hours later, when the rush of water reached Piedras
Blancas beaches, Friends of the Elephant Seal’s webcam captured waves crashing
against the bluff that reaches to the sandy beach. https://www.facebook.com/friendsoftheelephantseal Any
pups that were on that narrow stretch were washed away. Pups aren’t able to
swim to save themselves until they are older.
One got stuck in the rocks above the beach. He (or
she), a newborn with umbilical cord still attached, struggled to extricate
himself from the rocky niche. His mother hovered nearby, barking encouragement,
but he was well and truly stuck.
Pups face danger as soon as they are born. For more
than 90 percent of the pups at Piedras Blancas, those mishaps have a happy
ending, like this intrepid pup.