Just down the road from the campground is a beach which is famous as the gathering place for Elephant Seals, so we took a picnic and drove down to have a look.
At this point the road runs along by the sea and there is a car park and a wooden boardwalk to give access seals to the beach. When we got there the cr park was not quite full, but pretty busy. We joined others and walked along the boardwalk above the beach, where we could see the seals, but not interfere with them.
There were probably a hundred or so seals on the sandy beach, they were all laid out in the sun. As we stood and watched we could pick out three types, the huge bull seals, the smaller females and the much smaller baby seals. The beach is a complete community as the seals come ashore in January and stay until march. They use the beach to live on, to mate then following year to have their babies then suckle them and mate again.
We watched the elephant seals for about an hour and a half, slowly we worked out how their social system worked. The males tried to create their own harem, so the strongest males had about half a dozen females for themselves, while other younger or weaker males hung around trying to pick off one of the females and mate with her. This brought about conflict as when the owner male saw this he would heave himself across the sand to protect his females, the result being a stand off between the two males. During whic the two males would rise up on thier flippers and roar through their big noses, which would inflate horrendously. If this was ot enough to rresolve the showdown then the males could end up fighting, many mlaes had large lacerations on their bodies. If he was successful in heading off the interloper he then reinforced his dominence by mating again with the female. The more aggressive the male, the more females he has, the more he has to to do to protect his harem. The females mostly lay out in the sun feeding their pup (most had one), or being chased and taken by a male, or just sleeping. The pups either slept or bounced around looking for the mothers teat, though they didn’t seem to mind which mum, or even male they approached, though the adult did and would bark at them or push them away. It was a fascinating visit, full of drama, a bit like watching Big Brother.
Wonderful shots!
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