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Originally uploaded by aliciamalia. It's Adam's birthday tomorrow (29th). I'm baking him a ham - his request - and we plan to have a few people over. I took him away last weekend instead of buying a present (he takes a perverse pride in being hard to shop for), and we both had a wonderful time.
This pour tired lump is an Elephant Seal. We missed mating season by about 6 months, but apparently July is a good time to witness males molting. The ranger said the seals have to dry out a bit to be able to shed their skin. Elephant seals clearer aren't made to move on land - this guy would throw his weight forward, collapse, snort, then throw again.
Other fascinating facts:
- a female can keep a pregnancy dormant until she has enough body fat to support the gestational period.
- only 5% of males will ever mate.
- in the 1880s, there were believed to be only 50 surviving elephant seals. There are now 80,000.
- elephant seals swim to Hawaii (or thereabouts) annually. They can dive to a depth of 5000 feet.
- they don't sleep, but are capable of lowering their heartrate to a "resting" state.
Less fascinating:
- the call of a male sounds like a "sewer grate opening" (not my phrase), and you can smell them 1/2 mile away.
We plan to make another trip in January to see mating season - it's supposed to be wild. More info for the curious here.
1 comment:
very silly story...
several years ago my then eleven year old brother and nine year old sister and i stumbled across the smelly herd of elephant seals; i'd thought they wouldn't be there because i'd visited during mating season and forgot about molting season. in any case, in the car on the way back home we made up a little song to the tune of "make new friends but keep the old..."
elephat seals breed in the winter
and molt in the summer for three weeks
if you visit them in the summer
plug your youse because it stinks!
we sang it in a round for john that night.
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