March 12, 2007
An Avian Admirer
As I've mentioned before, I'm not much of a birder, but the more I take pictures of them, the more aware I become of what differentiates one from another.
Size, feather coloring, beak shape, habitat, coloring of talons... Just knowing what details to mentally (or physically) record help a lot in identifying it later.
Still, I'm a take-a-picture-first-before-it-flies-away-while-I'm-trying-to-unpack-Sibley's kind of girl. I'll ID the bird later, at home. Or I'll let my long-suffering assistant (aka my husband Shane) do it while I'm shooting.
Nowadays, I've actually come to like birds enough that I even have a favorite group (actually a Suborder: Alcedines) - the Kingfishers. This cute little guy is an African Pygmy-Kingfisher (Ispidina picta) and I took this picture just outside our tent at Finch Hatton's Safari Camp in Tsavo National Park, Kenya.
Posted by sorsha at 10:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 8, 2006
Moss Landing State Beach: Southern Sea Otters
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A Raft Of Otters |
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Playing In The Water |
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Keep Your Distance |
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Hanging In Kelp Beds |
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Just Floating Around |
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Floating Around |
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Grooming |
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Thick Coats |
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Mother & Young Otter |
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Moss Landing State Beach: Otter Research & Tagging
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Tagged! |
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Tags Are Pesky |
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Moss Landing State Beach: Otters & Their Young
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Mother and Child |
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Moss Landing State Beach: Otters at Play
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Otters Playing |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Otters Playing, Fighting & Mating |
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Moss Landing State Beach: Shark Attack
Great white sharks make their home in the Monterey Bay, but I have never see one in the Monterey Bay. Still, I know better than to swim anywhere near seals, nor near dusk. However, these otters didn't seem too bothered. Sorry I didn't get a better picture but at least you can see - the bigger splashing, the fin showing, and the very clear black and white coloring and bullet shape of the face. It looks to be a very young great white, given the size. It was not a successful attack.
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The Splash (Raft of Otters in the Background) |
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Snout, Black and White coloring, Pectoral Fin |
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- PERLGURL.ORG Podcast Episode #1: We're Going To Need A Bigger Boat - Great White Sharks
- Finally! Great Whites Get Protection
- Great White Sharks - More Footage
- Shark Cage Diving - Sketchy?
- Great White Sharks One of Many Victims In Multi-Billion Dollar Wildlife Black Market
- Fast Fishes: Great White Shark Speed Record
- Isolated Ecosystems: The Farallons Are California’s Galapagos
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May 16, 2006
Maui Marine Life
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In addition to the eels and sea turtles I've already blogged about, I thought I'd share some of the reef critters we encountered while snorkeling in Maui. Now keep in mind, I'm no fish expert, so I had to rely on hand-drawn book diagrams and bad pics to id some of these guys. Sorry the pictures are so grainy, but they were taken with a bunch of crappy underwater disposable cameras I bought on ebay for $20 because the film in them had recently expired. Not to mention, in case you didn't know, it's bloody difficult to take sharp photos underwater while snorkeling without a decent photo rig. | |
 Honolua Bay Reef, Maui | |
 Bluestripped Snapper |
 Triggerfish |
 Moorish Idol  Trumpetfish | |
 Chub |
 Goatfish |
 Parrotfish | |
 Orangespine Unicornfish |
 Boxfish |
 Raccoon Butterflyfish | |
 Black Sea Urchin |
 Cauliflower Coral |
 Rock Crab | |
 Black Durgon |
 Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse |
 School of Mullet  Needlefish | |
 Ornate Butterflyfish |
 Goatfish |
 Bluefin Tervally | |
 Convict Tangs |
 Slate Pencil Urchin (See the face in the coral?) |
 A Submerged Car (Pollution) | |
Here's a great reef fish chart you can download and laminate yourself! For a more extensive list with great photographic detail, check out Fishpics Hawaii. You can also check out some of my other underwater photography of great white sharks.
Check out our Maui, Hawaii podcast - a video program that highlights this beautiful place!
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May 4, 2006
Hawaiian Honu: The Green Sea Turtle
Shane Swimming With Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle
Hawaiian waters are a haven for four of the remaining seven species of sea turtles in the world: the green sea turtle, the hawksbill, the leatherback and the olive ridley. The green sea turtle is the most common.
Six out of the seven remaining sea turtle species of the world are either endangered and on the verge of extinction or under threat of extinction. Sea turtles have the distinction of being one of the few species on Earth to have witnessed dinosaurs evolving and going extinct. They've lived through ice ages, existing much as they do now, roaming the seas long before the Hawaiian Islands even existed. Some sources even claim that the Marquesas, the first humans to travel to the Hawaiian Islands, were guided by not just the stars, but also sea turtles.
It is unclear, however, if these ancient creatures will be able to survive the age of man.
The cold-blooded, air-breathing Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle is called "Honu" by the locals. We don't know how long the turtles live in the wild, but guestimates project mature adults may reach 80 to 100 years if left alone, reaching sexual maturity at about age 25. Because it takes so long for turtles to mature enough to reproduce, recovering from decline is a long and risky process.
Mother turtles haul out on exposed beaches on which they were born and lay their own clutches of about 100 leathery eggs, burying them in the sand and leaving them to their fates. As the mother turtle drags herself back to the ocean, she leaves an obvious trail leading straight back to her eggs. Nowadays, with beachfront property at a premium, turtle nesting grounds, also called natal beaches, are under threat not just in Hawaii, but also Central America and the Caribbean.
The temperature of the eggs also appears to influence the gender of the resulting hatchlings. Colder eggs tend to result in male hatchlings, while warmer ones tend to become females. As the world warms, we may see a shift in the healthy gender balance of turtle populations.
Sea turtle infant mortality is very high due to egg and hatchling predation from animals like Indian Mongoose, and other human-related impacts have had negative effects as well. For example, lighting near beaches seems to confuse hatchlings, luring them onto roads instead of toward the safety of the sea. Even once the hatchlings reach the water, they face many other threats beyond their natural predators like sharks.
Clumsy by-catch fishing habits result in unnecessary turtle deaths and diseases like fibropapillomatosis have greatly harmed turtle populations for the past century. Sea turtle shells and meat (green turtles are a main turtle soup ingredient) is often seen on the wildlife blackmarket, their fat was once harvested for its oil. Juveniles, who cannot sleep at depth, are forced to rest on the surface and often suffer from watercraft collisions and floating trash like plastic soda can rings.
Turtles are much more agile in the water, moving at speeds up to 35 mph. When we came upon this pair of green sea turtles, they swam up to us from below so quickly, we barely had time to get out of the way. After taking a breath (adults need to breathe about once every two hours when at rest), they returned to their dark overhang in the rocks, deep enough not to be bothered by snorkelers.
At one time, millions of green sea turtles swam the world's oceans. During the past century, their numbers have declined so much that eventually the green turtle was listed as an endangered species in 1978. The Hawaiian green sea turtle has made a partial comeback in the past couple of decades through conservation efforts. Since being listed, the turtle population has grown back up to several hundred thousand.
Current Hawaiian green turtle population levels are still thought to be below pre-western contact, and probably pre-World War II levels as well....Green sea turtles, as well as other sea turtles in Hawaii, are fully protected under both the federal Endangered Species Act and under Hawaii state law. These laws prohibit hunting, injuring or harassing sea turtles or holding them in captivity without first obtaining a special permit for research or educational purposes. Swimmers and divers should be aware that riding sea turtles is illegal as it puts the animals under unnecessary stress. Fines for violating these laws protecting turtles can be as high as $100,000 and may even include some time in prison.
More At: Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle
Still, the rise in the turtle population is a positive sign that conservationalists and wildlife officials are doing something right. It has also helped that in the past decade or so, it has become quite cheap and easy to use GPS tracking of marine creatures. Scientists now gather a lot of important data like migration routes and breeding areas, which helps policymakers protect the animals more effectively.
The first year Hawaii's green sea turtle expert counted the animals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, he found 67 nesting females at East Island, French Frigate Shoals.
Three decades later, on the same island, George Balazs' research team counted 467 nesting females in a season -- a nearly 600 percent increase.
Using additional data from the main Hawaiian Islands and mathematical modeling, Balazs estimates that Hawaii now has as many as 35,000 mature green sea turtles and perhaps 250,000 juveniles age 6 or under.
What a difference 25 years under the protection of the Endangered Species Act can make.
More At: Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Comeback
Check out our Maui, Hawaii podcast - a video program that highlights this beautiful place!
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February 23, 2006
Año Nuevo: A Wildlife Preserve
Less than 60 miles from the seven million people living in the Bay area (and 26.66 miles from my house according to MapQuest) lay a relatively untouched nature preserve on a rocky point overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When Spanish explorers first sailed by in 1603, they named the area Punta de Año Nuevo (New Year's Point).
More than four hundred years later, the point looks much as it did. It has, however, changed hands several times over the course of history.
At the time the Spanish sailed by, the Ohlone Indians lived on the sand dunes. Even today you can see middens, which are mounds of shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement. They are also believed to contain the remains of the Indians themselves. Later the area became pastureland and finally a private ranch and dairy farm.
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Pigeon Point Lighthouse |
Several ships wrecked on the foggy coast north of Santa Cruz, causing the feds to install a lighthouse at Pigeon Point, and a light tower to be built on the rocks at Año Nuevo Point. Over the years, the sand dunes have blown back into the ocean, disconnecting the light tower from the mainland and forming and island. Less than a hundred years ago, you could walk out to the point at low tide, but now the island is completely disconnected. However in 1948, the house and light tower on the point was replaced by an automatic buoy. Nowadays maritime traffic can avoid the point and shallows using GPS navigation, but even today foolish sailing vessels occasionally venture into the shallows and flounder.
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Great White Shark |
And it's a very bad spot to wreck a ship. The area from Ano Nuevo north to Point Reyes and then out to the Farallon Islands 27 miles offshore forms a region called the Red Triangle. Every year, countless marine mammal species come here to breed and have their young. This activity attracts lots of great white sharks and more attacks occur in this region than anywhere else in the world. The title Red Triangle is a rather gruesome one, likely originating from the blood slicks that often make the ocean run red after a shark attack. And right smack in the middle of this triangle is...? You guessed it! Año Nuevo Point.
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Nature Trail |
Elephant seals, a favorite snack of the great white shark, first appeared at Año Nuevo Island in the 1950's. The first pup was born on the island in 1961, and then in 1975 on the mainland sand dunes.
In 1971, the state bought the ranch. These days the old ranch house, dairy and other historic buildings at Año Nuevo have been restored. The largest barn has become a Visitor Center with a museum showcasing the wildlife, geology, botany, and natural history of the point.
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Northern Elephant Seal Rookery |
Today Año Nuevo State Reserve is a relatively untouched corner of California, protected by the state. It is home to many marine creatures and plants, not to mention the hundreds of species of raptors, shorebirds, and other mainland critters. But what really draws the visitors is the fact that Año Nuevo is now the largest mainland breeding colony in the world for the northern elephant seals.
Check out our Año Nuevo Elephant Seal podcast - a video that features this location!
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Northern Elephant Seals: Habitat
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Año Nuevo Point |
Año Nuevo State Reserve is home to the largest land-based rookery (breeding spot) of the Northern Elephant Seal in the world. More than two thousand pups are born here each and every year.
Despite the fact that the Northern Elephant Seal population was down under 100 animals about a century ago, the animals have made a rather spectacular recovery. The first elephant seal was spotted off the coast of Año Nuevo island in 1955, and soon after they began to haul out on the island. The first pup was born on the island in 1961, and then in 1975, the first pup was born on the mainland dunes.
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Sand Dunes |
The sand dunes at the point are ideal for raising elephant seal pups. when they're born, the pups cannot swim, nor do they have the protective blubber that allows the grown-up elephant seals to stay warm in the cold Pacific waters. Instead, the pups need some nice, dry land safe from storm surge and flooding, in order to nurse and grow their blubber. Then, as weaners, they need tidepools and shallows to teach themselves to swim and feed. Año Nuevo is ideal, as the dunes are sheltered from most of the storm surge, and the waters between the point and the island are very shallow. In fact, less than a century ago, one could walk from the point to the island at low tide.
As the Northern Elephant Seal population continues to grow, new rookeries have been established. But adequate habitats available to the seals are few and far between. Sometimes, elephant seals haul out in areas where humans have already taken over. These seals are often harassed, and rangers will sometimes chase these seals back into the water. A new rookery has been established in the past few years at Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, but during the last El Niño storm season, storm surge drown an entire season's batch of elephant seal pups.
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Negative Effects of Human Interaction |
But the elephant seals refuse to give up. One of the newest rookeries is along a stretch of Central California coastline near Hearst Castle. The rookery here is so close to the Pacific Highway that there have even been traffic accidents involving elephant seals.
Despite the fact that the elephant seal is no longer considered endangered, they are still under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which makes illegal any hunting, capturing, or killing, or harassment of any marine mammal. You must stay back at least 25 feet, often farther, from these wild creatures. That doesn't stop people from harassing the animals anyway. They'll poke them with sticks, throw rocks, and kick them. Dogs pose a special problem for elephant seals, causing them no end of grief. If you see someone harassing an elephant seal, or any other marine mammal, you should report them to the nearest ranger station or to the police.
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Año Nuevo Docent-Led Tours |
One of the best ways to see the Northern Elephant Seal safely in its native habitat, especially if you've never seen them before, is to take a docent-led tour at a place like Año Nuevo State Reserve. The docents are great for giving you lots of valuable information on the elephant seals, as well as the native plants, geology, and native peoples of the area.
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Northern Elephant Seals: Physical Traits
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Young Male Elephant Seal |
Northern Elephant Seals are carnivorous mammals. They cannot breathe underwater, but spend most of their time there. They come up onto land only to molt, mate, and birth cute little pups. The large, adult bulls can be up to 18 feet long and weigh 6000 pounds, although the cows are significantly smaller.
The seals have well-developed senses - sight, hearing, smell - but these all work better under the water than on land.
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Adult Male Proboscis |
The male Elephant Seal has a very unique nose, or proboscis. Only the mature males have this long nose, which can sometimes reach up to two feet in length when fully inflated. The nose is quite delicate, and scientists believe that its main purpose is to magnify his bellow. He pushes his nose down his throat when he makes his call, inviting other males to battle him and take their places in the dominance hierarchy. The sound can be heard up to a mile away.
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Strong Back Flippers For Propulsion |
Elephant Seals are incredibly agile swimmers. They have four flippers - two in the front and two in the back. The strong back flippers are used to propel the animal, while the front flippers are used for steering and walking on land.
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Strong Flippers |
Elephant Seals can swim up to 12mph and hold their breath for a long time - the record is 119 minutes. They have specially adapted bodies to help them live in the water. They have much more blood than a land mammal of similar size, and their blood contains more hemoglobin to hold oxygen. They also have more myoglobin in their muscles, allowing them to store oxygen there as well. Finally, they can shut off some of their bodily functions while submerged, and only supply vital ones with oxygen.
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Front Flippers For Steering |
Elephant Seal flippers have five digits, just like humans. Each digit has a nail-like claw, with the first and fifth being slightly longer than the others.
You'll often see Elephant Seals on land using their front flippers to scratch themselves or flip sand onto their backs in order to protect themselves from the heat of the sun. They do not use their flippers in battle with other bulls, from what I've seen.
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Big Black Eyes For Seeing Underwater |
Seals are quite famous for their large, black eyes. These eyes help the seal, an underwater hunter, find prey in the dark, deep waters where their favorite foods live. Seals have mirror-like membranes at the back of their eyes that help let in any available light.
Seals can see on land, but not as well as in the water. They can only see sharp images in bright light, otherwise they just see blurs. This allows researchers to sneak up on the animals fairly easily. It also allowed hunters to do so in centuries past.
Because they live primarily under the water, seals do not have tear ducts. On land, the tears used to keep their eyes moist drain right out of their eyes, making it appear that they are crying.
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Stiff, Sensitive Whiskers For Finding Food |
Visibility at 1500 feet is often non-existent. The Elephant Seal does not just depend on its eyesight to hunt, but its other senses at well. Seals depend on their sense of touch to hunt prey, and they also have long, sensitive whiskers.
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Whiskers For Finding Prey |
The seals can detect the waves of pressure produced by moving objects like fish. They can hunt down an animal that produced these waves up to two minutes prior, determining the direction they went and then catching them. Elephant Seals can also tell when they are swimming towards large, stationary objects by sensing their own waves bouncing back at them.
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30 Teeth For Holding Prey |
Elephant Seals have 30 spiky teeth for grabbing and holding their prey. They have four large, sharp canines that the bulls use as weapons when they fight each other. The seals do not have molars for chewing, but tend to swallow prey whole.
They eat deepwater fish like squid and octopus, sharks, skates, and ratfish, as well as halibut, cod, flounder, sole, anchovies, herring, smelt, and salmon. An adult male might eat hundreds of pounds of fish per day. If the seal opens its mouth underwater, its strong throat muscles seal off its lungs from the water pressure.
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Cumbersome Land Movement Of Elephant Seals |
Although the seals haul out for important activities like mating, they are quite clumsy on land. They flop along by dragging themselves on their bellies, pulling themselves by their front flippers. They leave long trails where they have dragged themselves up and down the sand dunes.
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Northern Elephant Seals: Keeping Cool
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Young Elephant Seal Bull Covers Himself With Sand |
When you've got six inches of blubber and a waterproof fur coat, you might imagine that sitting out on the beach for weeks without water might be a bit uncomfortable. and you'd be right.
But the Northern Elephant Seal does just that. Twice a year, they return to the beaches on which they were born, staying for one to three months on land, without water or food. They have several special adaptations that help them cope and keep their cool - literally.
If you watch the seals, you'll often see them flipping sand onto their backs. Seal researchers believe that this helps protect the elephant seal's skin from the sun and keeps them cool.
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Bull Cools Off In Tidepool |
During their stint on land, you'll often see the big male elephant seals called bulls hanging out in the tidepools to keep cool. You'll also see the young weaners, or recently weaned elephant seal pups, learning to swim here as well. You're not likely to see females in the tidepools. They come ashore to birth and nurse and mate, and then promptly leave.
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Bull In Tidepool |
The elephant seal can hold its breath for quite a long time, the current record being 119 minutes, just one minute shy of two hours. They also have sleep apnea, meaning that when they are asleep, they often stop breathing entirely for short spans of time. This has led many people who come upon a sleeping elephant seal to believe they're looking at a dead one!
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How The Elephant Seal Got Its Name |
When the Northern Elephant Seal is submerged, it's easy to see where they get their name. They look just like an elephant swimming through the water. Only the sexually mature males, however, have the long nose, or proboscis.
Loser males, or adult males who have lost a battle and are therefore not going to have a harem, often hang out on nearby beaches. On these "loser beaches", the males lay around sleeping and keeping cool, biding their time until they might get in on some of the harem action themselves. You'll often see younger males lounging and fighting amongst themselves in the surf.
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Cool In The Surf |
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Northern Elephant Seals: Bulls, Dominance & Harems
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Vocalization |
You'll often hear them long before you see them. The largest seal in the world, the elephant seal, hauls out along the California coastline in December in order to establish harems, or breeding groups.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Nose Vocalization |
One of the first steps in the establishment of a harem is to become a dominant or alpha male. In order to do this, you need to defend your turf against all comers - making it a safe, hospitable place that a female elephant seal, or cow, would want to birth and nurse her pup. The mature male, called a bull, will curl his long nose towards his throat and make a call, or vocalization, that states to the other males: "Come and get me!" This call can be heard for miles.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: The Warning Gape |
When a bull meets another male, they will size each other up. They take in their relative sizes: how long their noses are, and how big their teeth are. I call this yawning at each other a warning gape: the better to bite you with. If one male doesn't turn around and leave, then the dominance display moves to the next level and the males rear up and come together for a physical encounter, chest to chest.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Chest Shield |
The battle-worn males have a calloused chest, this chest shield develops as the bull grows, and helps protect them from injury when they fight with other males. Bulls often try to bite each other in the neck.
These physical encounters take a lot of energy on land, and rarely last more than about 10 seconds. However, some battles seem to go on and on. All male elephant seals are very conscious as to where they fall in the dominance hierarchy. And as the alpha male fasts for the months in which he reigns over his breeding harem, he loses weight, often as much as 25 pounds a day. This makes it more and more difficult for him to keep his position as the season progresses. By the end of the season, it turns into a relative free for all, where the less dominant males, who have been chilling on the loser beaches, have some chance of mating with the late-pupping cows.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Battered Noses |
Only mature males have the long elephant-like nose. Their nose is quite delicate and is considered a secondary sexual characteristic - the bigger the nose, the more mature and strong the male. That said, a bull's nose can be hurt in battle, but that doesn't stop the bull from becoming an alpha male with his own harem.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Dominance Displays |
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Northern Elephant Seal Bulls Lunge For The Throat |
Although the Northern Elephant Seal has no natural predators on land other than humans, the young pups often get caught in the middle of battles when an alpha male is protecting his harem from interlopers who hang around the boundaries of the harem, hoping for some action of their own. Every year, young pups are squashed by these big bulls.
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Northern Elephant Seals: Pups Get Caught In The Middle |
Below, you can see a big alpha male in the foreground, with all his cows and pups around him. You'll note that there are no other large bulls in his territory. He protects it, with violence if necessary. However, since the alpha bull is usually the biggest, strongest bull around, he often does not have to make much of an effort to deter other bulls. He can just rear up, give a warning gape, or move towards the invading male, and that male will turn tail and flop away. Not every male elephant seal is destined to have his own harem - only 5% of all males ever father pups and have a harem, and very rarely does an alpha male reign for more than one season.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bull: Alpha & Harem |
Check out our Año Nuevo Elephant Seal podcast - a video that features bull vocalization and dominance displays!
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Northern Elephant Seals: Pups
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A Very Pregnant Female Elephant Seal |
When a female Elephant Seal hauls out at Año Nuevo State Reserve in late December or early January, it certainly isn't easy. She's been at sea for many months and now she's very, very pregnant. And now, as she hauls her big body up onto the sand dunes, she has to run a gauntlet of eager males wanting to mate prematurely, and find a safe harem to birth her helpless little pup. She generally gives birth that first week, usually within five days of coming ashore.
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Births Are Followed By Shorebirds Eating Afterbirth |
Not many people ever witness an Elephant Seal birth. The cow only ever gives birth to only one dark brown-furred pup, which weighs between 60 and 90 pounds. The pup is born with his eyes open and can move soon after, snuggling at his mother to nurse. You can often tell where a birth has happened because lots of gulls will land nearby to eat the afterbirth.
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Cow & Pup Bond Vocally |
Soon after a cow gives birth, she will vocalize, or sing, to her new pup. The pup responds by yapping a bit and now the cow will be able to recognize her own pup amongst the others, should they be separated. That said, the cow will not leave her pup willingly for the entire time she nurses him - 28 days. However some pups wander off, or are separated when an alpha bull flops by. The male plays no role in the raises of young.
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Cow & Pup Bond For The Month |
The cow and pup will spend the first 28 days together. During this time, the cow will have no food or water. She will devote herself exclusively to nursing her newborn. It is very important that the pup gets to nurse for the full four weeks, for he was born without the protective blubber to keep him warm, nor does he know how to swim. He will need that milk.
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Pups Drink Rich Fatty Milk |
Although the pup is very small when he is born, he grows fast, sometimes gaining 10 pounds a day. Within a week, he has doubled his birth weight. The thick, oily milk he nurses is 55% butterfat, full of fat and protein. Soon he will be so fat that although he hasn't learned to swim, he cannot sink, either. By the end of the month, the cow may have dropped almost 50% of her body weight.
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Cows Bicker Over Harem Spots |
The cows of the harem bicker and nip at each other over the best spots in the harem, but they don't fight like the males do. She feeds her pup until he looks like a fat little sausage, having grown not much in length but decidedly in girth. She does not teach him anything, though. If she has not chosen a safe spot to nurse him, storm surge and flooding can drown the little pups before they are old enough to fend for themselves.
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28 Days Later, Weaned Pups Rival Mom |
After a month of nursing, the cow goes into estrus, or heat. She mates with the male during these last few days as she weans her pup. Then, she returns to the sea. By the time she weans her pup, he is almost as big as she is. These newly weaned pups are left to fend for themselves, and they produce a mighty racket in protest. They are now called weaners.
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Milk Thieves Become Super Weaners |
Some weaners don't much like being weaned. They become milk thieves, stealing milk from another cow and depriving her pup. Some weaners manage to nurse for ANOTHER 28 days, and become so fat, they are called super weaners. These guys can weigh up to 500lbs and are generally males. Funny that.
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Pup Mortality Is High |
Despite the fact that Elephant Seals have no real predators on land, pup mortality is still about 50%. Some pups are trampled to death by passing males; others wander off and lose their mothers. Coyotes help keep the beaches clean. Still more will be eaten once they enter the water, which is full of great white sharks, the primary predator of the Northern Elephant Seal. In fact, the great whites of the San Francisco Bay area are significantly larger than the ones around South Africa for this very reason - diet. Our great whites eat big, fat Elephant Seals, while the South African great whites feast on the much smaller Cape Fur Seal.
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Northern Elephant Seals: Mating
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Alpha Male Mating In The Harem |
The first males that haul out in December are often the alpha males from the previous season, followed by the other large males. The males fight each other until they have established a dominance hierarchy. The alpha males, or males that successfully defend their territory and establish harems, will mate with anything from 30 to 70 cows.
Cows begin breeding at around 5 years old, and have one pup a year for their entire lifetimes. Bulls cannot mate until they are 4, but really, they do not mate until they are old enough and large enough to establish themselves as dominant alphas, usually over 8 years old.
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Northern Elephant Seals Mating |
Only 5% of all male pups born will eventually become alpha males and mate with cows. And since there were less than 100 seals left less than a century ago, the several hundred thousand elephant seals today all are descendants of this small population. This has led to a genetic bottleneck - all the seals are vulnerable to the same factors. Also, since only the largest males are fathering all the pups, the elephant seals are growing larger as the generations pass.
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Beta Males Mate When They Can |
Alpha males will often allow Beta males - the mature males that lose to the Alphas but are still high up in the dominance hierarchy - to hang out on the edges of his harem. When any cow arrives, very pregnant and looking to join a stable harem, she must get past the Beta males. Any arriving male that wants to challenge the Alpha for his harem will have to run a gauntlet of beta males first. The bulls fast through the mating season, losing weight and fighting advantage as the season progresses. At the beginning of the season, you're likely to see one large bull surrounded by lots of cows and little pups, but by the end of the season, when the alpha has fasted for almost three months, you'll see many large bulls fighting to get a little mating in.
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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