March 30, 2007
Northern Elephant Seals: A Weaner Wonderland
The mating season of the Northern Elephant Seal is coming to a close.
The last big males have been defending their harems for the past three months without food or water. They have lost more than a third of their body weight and look rather deflated. The last females have weaned their pups and lost about half of their weight in 28 days. They mate with the alpha bull of the harem and take off to the waters north of Hawaii to feed again. Nothing left for the males to mate with, so they have left as well.
What's left is what the Año Nuevo park rangers affectionately call "A Weaner Wonderland".
The ugly looking image below is a ridiculously sloppy panorama I made from 24 individual images of weaners playing in the tidepools during an exceptionally low tide that occured last week. If you click on the panorama, it links to a somewhat larger version (14mp, about 7000x2000 pixels) which you can explore more and see what the individual weaners are up to.
Posted by sorsha at 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Shore Bird Bonanza
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Brown Pelicans & gulls |
Monterey Bay has lots of different kinds of shore birds. Some, like the Brown Pelican and the Snowy Plover, nest here. Other birds, like the loons, grebes and terns, migrate through.
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Heermann's Gull (Larus heermanni) |
You'll often see the shore birds splashing in the freshwater in the morning, washing the salt from their wings. The pelicans and cormorants like to nest in great colonies on the high cliffs overlooking the ocean.
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Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) |
Not all gulls are created equal. There are many different types. It's often confusing to identify them, since their coloring changes from when they are young, to adolescent, to adult.
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Sanderlings(Calidris alba) |
Sanderlings are known to hang out along the surf feeding. They are fun to watch as they running down to the water during the ebb of a wave, and then when the surf comes back up on the beach, the sanderlings run back up along with it.
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Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) |
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Pelican Roost |
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Sandpiper, Most Likely A Marbled Godwit (Limosa Fedoa) |
I am clearly the most pitiful bird identifier, because even after pouring over Sibley's Field Guide To Birds of Western North America, I cannot positively identify exactly which member of the Sanderlings group this bird belongs to! Admittedly, the book does state that, because of the closeness of species, sanderlings are rather difficult to ID... so at least I'm not the only one who thinks so.
 | Another similar-looking bird, the Snowy Plover, is an endangered species. In the habitats remaining for the snowy plover, human activity is a key factor adversely affecting coastal breeding sites and breeding populations. |
Sanderling (Calidris alba) |
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California Gull (Larus Californicus) |
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California Gull (Larus Californicus) |
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March 16, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Heaven for Hummingbirds
The Northern Elephant Seal mating season is coming to an end, and so this week I thought I would try to be more sensitive to the birds in the area. It seemed its peak time for hummingbirds. I couldn't walk more than a few feet without hearing the telltale chirping, inevitably finding a hummingbird at a top branch of the scrub. From most angles, they just look like normal little birds. Then suddenly, they turn slightly and their bright iridescent feathers flash.
Just like the elephant seals, hummingbirds (Family Trochilidae) display traits of sexual dimorphism, or sexual differentiation. Much like peafowl, the males are the colorful ones and the females aren't so much. There are about 330 species of hummingbirds in the world, and they are all in North and South America. Many of the species exist only in the tropics and the Cuban Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is the world's smallest bird.
The bee hummingbird is the world's smallest homeothermic [warm-blooded] vertebrate. When flying, its wings beat 80 times per second, up to 200 times per second during courtship displays. Its heart rate is the second fastest of all animals. Bee hummingbirds also have the fewest feathers of all birds. Their body temperature is 40 °C (104 °F), the highest of all birds
More At: Wikipedia: Bee Hummingbird
And talk about a sugar high, these tony, ultralight birds can consume up to half their body weight in sweet nectar every day! This helps them beat their wings more than 100 times per second and fly at speeds of up to 60mph. Still, they are preyed upon by birds of prey as well as domestic and feral cats.
Some hummingbird species migrate hundreds of miles yearly, over land and open ocean. The Rufous Hummingbird can migrate 2000 miles from Mexico to Canada and Alaska, but not Hawaii. So why are they only found in the New World? Unfortunately, the fossil record isn't much help in terms of hummingbirds.
...these little birds are durable only in life. In death their delicate, hollow bones almost never fossilize. This was one reason for the astonishment that greeted the recent discovery of a jumble of 30-million-year-old fossil bird remains that may include an ancestral hummingbird. Like modern hummers, the fossil specimens had long, slender bills and shortened upper wing bones topped by a knob that may have let them rotate in the shoulder socket for hovering flight.
The other surprise was where the fossils were found: in southern Germany, far from modern hummingbird territory. To some scientists, the discovery shows that hummingbirds once existed outside the Americas, then went extinct. Or maybe the fossils weren't true hummingbirds. Skeptics, including Schuchmann, argue that other groups of birds evolved hummingbird-like characteristics many times through the eons. True hummingbirds, says Schuchmann, evolved in Brazil's eastern forests, where they competed with insects for flower nectar.
More At: National Geographic: Hummingbirds - Flight of Fancy
And again like elephant seals, hummingbirds are extremely territorial. They fight over food and territory but are rarely injured in these displays. Funny how such different species can be display such similar behaviors!
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March 13, 2007
Año Nuevo Birds: Tracking The Northern Harrier
There's a certain paradoxical quality to watching wildlife. Animals can be both predictable and extremely unpredictable.
I've taken many walks in Año Nuevo State Reserve. I like to show up early, and be the first one on the trail, brushing the night's spider webs from the path. The earlier the better, for the school trips that show up later in the morning scare much of the wildlife from the trails.
Just before the ranger station, I enter a great field where inevitably, the male and female Northern Harriers or Marsh Hawks, will be waiting. If I'm lucky, a harrier will still be perched close to the ground and I'll get to watch as it takes off and soars over the fields, looking for breakfast.
I see them every single morning I walk there, but I can never predict where they will be or what they will be doing. Every day is different.
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Considered one of the most agile raptors on the continent, the Northern Harrier range extends from Alaska to the Baja coastline. Once common, the species was listed on Audubon's American Birds' Blue List during the 1970's due to habitat loss and the use of pesticides like DDT which had caused especially acute reproductive failure in the species. Basically, DDT caused bird egg shells to be too thin, and the effects of the pesticide were magnified by each level in the food chain, so apex predators like birds of prey were accumulating the largest amounts of the chemicals.
The Blue List tried to provide an early warning of those North American bird species undergoing population or range reductions. The idea was to watch for declines and identify them before species reached endangered status, when it was often too late. The Blue List was published from 1971-1986 in the Audubon Society's American Birds magazine. Flaws in the Blue List certainly existed, and the Audubon Society eventually came up with it's current WatchList system.
The severe population declines noted for Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls in the late 1970s was attributed to the extensive alteration and loss of grassland habitats throughout the Midwest. Interestingly, although Harrier numbers began to increase in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Short-eared Owl numbers continued to decline. During this same period, there was a substantially large increase in the amount of available grassland habitat due to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Consequently, Northern Harriers appear to benefit from CRP land, while Shorteared Owls may not.
More At: Audubon Society: American Birds - The 102nd Christmas Bird Count
The Northern Harrier population has since begun to recover and is considered stable globally, although some specific populations, especially in New England, remain listed as endangered or threatened at the state level. Still, the Northern Harriers face threats.
A ground nesting bird, the Northern Harrier needs nice marsh to build its nest. Invasive plants like pepperweed threaten this habitat. Native to southern Europe and Western Asia, pepperweed competes with native flora, posing a serious threat to native wetlands and wetland restoration projects. Willows and Cottonwood trees, for example, suffer because they cannot compete effectively against dense stands of pepperweed. Native marsh birds, like the Harrier, therefore do not have the nesting materials needed nor can they nest in the invasive weeds. Research is just beginning on how to protect wetlands from invasives like pepperweed, and a lot of questions remain unanswered.
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Northern Harrier |
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March 10, 2007
Año Nuevo: Stalked By A Harbor Seal
When the tide is out a bit, I love to walk along Cove Beach in Año Nuevo Reserve. It's a nice long stretch of probably about half a mile and I'm often the only person on it, especially early in the morning. It's become a loser beach for young male elephant seals who don't establish their dominance and set up harems, as well as young seals just learning to swim.
On more than one occasion, I've been wandering down the beach, looking up at the rocky cliffs or examining something in the sand, and not noticed a large male elephant seal hauling out of the water behind me. It's no big deal, I'm just between him and the nice spot he's picked out to lay in. I just get out of the way. Still, I've learned to keep one eye on the water as I'm walking along, just to avoid that little "EEP!" moment.
Elephant Seals aren't the only marine life around by any means. One morning I was walking along Cove Beach and I glanced out into the ocean, and I saw a little seal. I know the picture above is a bit dark, and a wet seal looks like, well, a wet seal, but this particular one had very splotched coloring and it didn't look like an elephant seal weaner.
Año Nuevo Island and the adjacent mainland beaches make up one of the most important pinniped rookery and resting areas in central and northern California... Harbor seals are much smaller and quite wary and elusive.
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Harbor seals live on the island all year and breed there in April and May. They can often be seen bobbing in the surf just off the reserve's beaches, with only their heads out of the water. They can also be seen occasionally on offshore rocks where the mottled pattern of their coats is apparent.
More At: Año Nuevo SR: Marine Life
It was a harbor seal, a relatively young one and I was to find it was a very curious one. I looked at her (inquisitive seals are always female). Ok, so that's probably not really true, but I could not examine the seal's unmentionables and it sounded good and I hate calling the seal an "it".
So, anyway, back to my story. I looked at her and she looked right back at me. She was probably about 35 feet away. After a few long moments of eye contact, I turned and continued to walk down the beach. About a handful of steps later, I looked out to sea again. She was still there, right even with me. I was surprised. I walked further and she stayed parallel with me the whole way, never coming closer or putting any distance between us. She tracked me all the way down the beach, for at least a quarter of a mile.
The episode has stuck with me. Really, think how many times you have been followed by an animal. Specifically one that has not been domesticated or one that expects food from you. It doesn't happen very often.
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March 5, 2007
Ele-Facts: Flexible Fins & Bendable Backbones
Despite looking rather cumbersome on land, elephant seals are quite flexible. The flexible spine and flippers of an elephant seal all it to live both on land and in the sea.
Bendable Backbones
Elephant seals are not especially agile on land, but in water, few creatures can compare. Their flexible backbones allow them to weave through the water at lightning speeds to catch prey and avoid predators.
When they haul out on beaches to mate and to molt, elephant seals haul their immense bodies across the sand using an undulating flop that requires a lot of back strength. When the big bulls fight for dominance, they stand on their front flippers and arch their backs in order to overpower each other.
In fact, an elephant seal can reach any part of its body with its front flippers and can even touch its nose to its tail. They're that flexible!
Flexible Flippers
Elephant seals have two webbed front flippers and two webbed back flippers. Their back flippers are relatively large but not as flexible as their smaller front flippers, which they can rotate and curl. Their front flippers even have nails.
Seals use their flippers for a variety of purposes. In the sea, they use their front flippers to navigate and their back flippers to propel them through the water. On land, they drag their back flippers but use their front flippers for a variety of things like:
To Move
Elephant seals drag themselves around on land, flopping along with the help of their front flippers. You'll see the alpha males use their front flippers alot to keep their heads up, vigilantly watching over their harems.
To Scratch
They've got flexible webbed digits with nails on their front flippers and with the help of their bendable spines, they can scratch anywhere!
To Flip Sand
Scientists aren't sure why the elephant seals flip sand on themselves. Perhaps to cool off, or to avoid sunburn, or because of some parasite. They do it day and night, rain or shine, young or old.
To Hold
Males will often hold the female down while they mate. They do this by biting the female's neck, laying on top of her, and holding her with their front flipper. I've also heard that dominant males may do this as a sign of protection, even going so far as to escort a female of a harem to the waterline after mating.
Posted by sorsha at 1:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 15, 2007
Año Nuevo: Scavengers
Coyote
February is a crucial time for baby elephant seals.
Many of them are about 28 days old, and suddenly, their mothers up and leave them, hopefully high and dry.
They don't know how to swim. They have nothing to eat. They're plump as can be, those little seals we call weaners.
They face predators both on land and in the sea. Great white sharks and orcas patrol the waters off the point and on land, scavengers like this coyote pick off the weak and defenseless.
The weaners gather together in little groups called weaner pods, huddling for protection, shelter and companionship. They play in the rain puddles and blow bubbles in the water as they teach themselves to swim, by instinct alone.
The big male elephant seals are the beachmasters, but the coyotes are the beach cleaners. Sometimes little seals don't make it, and the coyotes are there to take care of it.
Posted by sorsha at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2007
Ele-Facts: When To Go See The Seals
When people find out that I visit Año Nuevo so often (once/week during mating and pupping season, several other times per year), the first question they inevitably ask:
When is the best time to see the elephant seals?
There are elephant seals at Año Nuevo year-round, but different ages and genders visit at different times. Most people go in the middle of summer, when very fractious seals molt their entire fur coat over a few weeks time. Let's just say, its not the elephant seal at its most photogenic.
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Northern Elephant Seal Bulls Fight For Dominance |
The best time of year, in my opinion, is right about now - late January to late February. Now the rookery is most active, with a variety of seals on land, all at the same time. You've got big males battling to keep their harems of females. The females are giving birth to dark little pups, and then weaning them 28 days later, leaving lots of plump, whining weaners flopping about.
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Northern Elephant Seal Mother With Pup |
So the next question is, what time of day should I go? Elephant seals have a think layer of blubber in order to protect themselves in the deep cold waters off of Alaska and thousands of feet underwater. On land, the seals will overheat if they exert themselves too much. You'll want to visit when it's coolest, so the earlier in the morning you get there, the better. Days with a breeze, that are cool and even drizzly, are when the seals will be most active.
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Very Young Northern Elephant Seal Pup |
I tend to go on weekdays - there are fewer people on the guided docent tours, but you have to beat teh school-kid fieldtrip rush, as these louder groups will often scare away much of the other wildlife on the trails like birds of prey and other little critters. Also, the smaller your group, the more likely the guides will take you close to the seals.
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January 17, 2007
Ele-Facts: Elephant Seal Mating Season
For the past three years, I have been visiting an elephant seal colony during mating season. Once a week, I hike out to Año Nuevo reserve, one of the largest and most successful mainland elephant seal rookeries. Despite my many trips, I still learn something new each and everytime I go.
Right now the big males have hauled out on the beaches, and begun to establish their dominance heirarchy. Very plump and pregnant females are hauling out and choosing a harem to join, granting the alpha male who lords over it prime mating rights with her when her pup is weaned in a month or so.
Over the next few weeks, I will share some of my findings here. in this Ele-Facts column. These are tidbits of information I have learned during my visits and my own research. While I've called this column Ele-Facts, please keep in mind that I cannot back up everything, as information changes and is updated frequently in the docent-lead walks. When I can, I will point out sources online, but keep in mind that some of this information comes directly from the latest information available from researchers, through the docents, and from there to me. From there, it's often memory until I get home to blog about it. Just keep that in mind when you're considering quoting me for your science reports, little ones...
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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!
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Año Nuevo State Reserve: The Flora
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Morning Fog |
Heavy winter rainfall combined with frequent fog creates an interesting botanical ecosystem of scrubs and low-lying twisted trees. This same fog creeps into the valleys, supporting the coastal redwoods.
Much of the Pacific coastline is windy, foggy, and salty. This makes it difficult for many plants to grow. The trees are often twisted and stunted, when they grow at all. Most of what grows is low-lying scrubby bushes, many of which have very small leaves. Conifers with their drought-tolerant needle-leaves tend to do better than most plants. This biome, or natural environment, is called Chaparral. The California chaparral and woodlands terrestrial ecoregion extends from central California to Baja.
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Native Willow |
Willow bark has been used as a medicine for centuries - even has far back as 400 BC. More recently, the Ohlone Indians chewed the bark of the native willow for its fever and pain relieving properties. The Ohlone Indian civilization was disrupted by the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, and later American pioneers. The last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language died in 1939.
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Año Nuevo Grassland After Controlled Burn |
Año Nuevo has used fire as a tool to manage and protect certain habitats that are changing over time due to various factors. There is a large grass field in the reserve, and although many people believe that open areas are the product of human intervention, grassland is considered the eighth rarest ecosystem in the United States.
Much of the coastal prairie of Santa Cruz County has become scrubland over time. However, this grassland is actually often a native ecosystem, which is the habitat of creatures like San Francisco garter snake ( Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia). This endangered snake is only found on the San Francisco peninsula in about 20 spots, including the Año Nuevo State Reserve. When the sole grassland habitat of the reserve became overrun with shrubbery, then snake conservationalists came out, caught all the snakes from the field, did a controlled burn, and then re-released the snakes (hopefully to the same spots they got them from).
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Non-Native Ice Plant |
Coast ice plant (Carpobrotus chiloensis) was once though to be native to California. We now believe that ice plant was introduced from Australia in the late 1890's to stabilize the dunes. However, researchers have found that dunes with non-natives do not support as many plants and animal species as those which are populated by native plants. This makes sense if you think about it: flora and fauna of an ecosystem are closely bound together in terms of dependence. Native animals generally eat native plants - and native plants depend on native animals often for nutrients and for pollination, seed spreading, etc.
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Clover Fields |
The California coastline is still quite desolate, and is made up mostly of farmland. You'll often see cattle grazing and crops like brussel sprouts and artichokes growing along the coastline. You'll also pass smaller, organic berry farms and in spring, many fields are covered with yellow clover. Clover has long been used in an agricultural practice called soiling, where farmers grow nutrient-rich clover to fertilize the field, but also they will feed the greenery to livestock in the barn. This allows ranchers to use less pastureland with their cattle, because they can graze in the barn.
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Año Nuevo State Reserve: Light Station History
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Between Pigeon Point and Año Nuevo |
On January 3, 1603, when the Quroste group of the Ohlone Indians lived on the point, the Spanish explorers on the ship of Don Sebastian Viscaino sailed by. Onboard, Father Antonio de la Ascension named the point Punta de Año Nuevo (New Year's Point) for the day on which they sighted it. It's likely for the best that they did not land there, or anywhere near it.
The Europeans did not actually come in contact with the Ohlone until the late 1700's, when Spaniard Gaspar de Portola, led an overland expedition to the San Francisco Bay. A series of religious outposts were established to spread the Christian doctrine among the local natives, as well as to give the Spanish a foothold in the California territories. The missions introduced European livestock and crops into the region, but along with religion, they also brought diseases that the native peoples had never been exposed to, and had no immunity of. Measles, plague, smallpox, typhus, and venereal diseases decimated the native population, killing 90% of the people.
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Shipwreck Relic |
The closest mission to Punta de Año Nuevo was Mission Santa Cruz, founded in 1791. Hundreds of Ohlones, including the Quroste clan, gathered to the mission to be baptized. Most became sick and those who survived saw their culture erode until they lost their native way of life entirely. There is no one left alive today that can speak the Ohlones language fluently. Año Nuevo was used as pastureland by the missionaries.
After generations used it for pastureland, then it became a private ranch, and then after that, a dairy before it was finally bought by the State of California in 1971. Today, the farm buildings have been renovated to be the Año Nuevo Visitor Center, natural history museum and ranger buildings. Slowly, the native plants are returning, erasing all traces of the agricultural legacy of the region. Sand mine operation during the 1950's during the construction of State Highway 1 caused significant damage to the sand dunes and caused erosion problems that still haunt us today - just look at Devil's Slide, less than a mile to the south of the point, which falls apart at every major earthquake and causes millions of dollars in taxpayer monies.
The San Francisco mission and military fort started out small, but Spanish, Mexican and British settlement was driven by fur trade (including seals) and pioneering. The California Gold Rush in 1849 clinched it. The railroad, banking, mining, and shipping industries became major economic forces in the city. Despite being famously foggy, the Port of San Francisco became the largest and busiest seaport on the western coast of North America.
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Pigeon Point Lighthouse |
Shipping traffic along the California coastline increased along with the population. The rocky, foggy shoreline became famous with seafarers for shipwrecks. The couple mile stretch of rocky coast between the point of Año Nuevo north to Pigeon Point saw several ships lost over a relatively short period of time and U.S. Coast Survey recommended building a lighthouse. But there were other priorities and the Santa Cruz lighthouse was built first. Finally, in 1872, a fog whistle was installed on the Año Nuevo and later was upgraded to a five-story light tower atop the water tank.
The first light was an oil lens lantern, tended by someone at the island's light station in 1890. In 1906, a two story house was built adjacent to the station and later, in 1915, a Fresnel lens was installed. The keeper's home had 8 rooms for the head keeper and 7 rooms for the assistant keeper. The salty sea air constantly battered the wooden buildings, and maintenance was a major endeavor. Fences kept the sea lions and other pinnipeds at bay. Eleven years later, on October 22, 1926, an earthquake struck and the lens was broken. The lantern lens was again displayed until a replacement lens arrived. At its peak, the island had a light, along with the elaborate keeper's dwelling, a tramway, dock, and a boathouse.
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Año Nuevo Island Light Station |
In 1948, the station was decommissioned. The Coast Guard determined that the expense of maintaining the island, its keepers, and its buildings, was too great. An automatic buoy with a light, sound, and radar reflector replaced the fog signal and light. By 1955, the federal government sold the island to the State of California, who classified the island as a scientific preserve to protect the seal breeding colonies who quickly took over the island.
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Northern Elephant Seal Rookery |
Today, the only people allowed out onto the island are researchers. Four kinds of pinnipeds live and birth their young on the island and the mainland. The house is derelict, with California sea lions venturing up onto the second floor, even hanging out in the abandoned bath tub. Birds nest in the rotting rafters. Needless to say, the place stinks. The light tower was dismantled in 1976 for safety's sake, and you can only see its foundation now.
Posted by sorsha at 1:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
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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