May 2018
Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest
In all the years I’ve been walking along my four local beaches, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen seals hauled out here. A road runs along most of these beaches giving easy access for humans and dogs. While seals and sealions frequent these waters, sometimes quite close to shore, they prefer to haul out on remote inaccessible offshore rocks and islands. That’s why it was so notable to see one on my favorite local beach last month — and even more surprising to see an elephant seal! This seal was a female, lacking the big “trunk nose” of the males that gives them that name.
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Elephant seals spend most of their lives swimming and fishing deep outer waters. The only times they come ashore are during breeding season (December/January) and to moult (females in spring, juveniles early summer, males late summer (www.marinemammalcenter.org/… ).
Northern Elephant seals were nearly exterminated in the 19th c, slaughtered for their blubber, but a few isolated populations survived off Mexico, and with official protection by both Mexico and the US in the 1920s, the elephant seal population recovered (blog.nature.org/…). All they needed was an end to hunting. Their rookeries are in California and Mexico — except for one recent northern outlier in the Salish Sea.
For the past two decades a few elephant seals have been coming and going from Race Rocks, a Canadian Ecological Preserve at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, and in 2007 the first pups were born there. Elephant seals also come ashore there to moult ( www.racerocks.ca/...).
It’s possible that’s where this seal may have wandered in from, about 40 miles west.
Moulting for elephant seals is described as “catastrophic”: they slough off all their fur and outer skin layer in 25-28 days (sites.google.com/… ) (as a sidebar, this is why if elephant seals are marked, it’s by tagging rather than branding since a brand would be sloughed off with its skin at the next moult). The seals will stay on shore that whole time, fasting, which is normal and they are well adapted for (www.elephantseal.org/...). The Seadoc professionals who monitored this seal said she was onshore both for moulting and to recover from her injuries. Both are stressful, so the monitors roped off that end of the beach to prevent people from disturbing her.
This is a timeline of this seal’s presence on the beach:
May 9: first seen by a local (described to me by a neighbor a couple days later).
May 11: Seal present on intertidal sand
May 12: Seal at water’s edge. It was quite warm that day, and likely the seal was cooling off by the water.
An immature eagle perched in a tree above it, and then adult eagle swooped in displacing the younger one. Both eagles took a good look at the seal lying there, probably picking up the odor of its wounds. Eagles feed on injured wildlife and carrion. But look is all they did. It was clear the seal was quite alive, though lying still to conserve energy.
Lest it appear the seal in these photos is dead, I’m including a brief video of it. It doesn’t move much — since it has to fast for a month while on shore moulting it extends its energy reserves (blubber) by minimizing activity. Incidentally, seals don’t drink seawater; they get all their water from their food or metabolizing fat.
You can see the kelp flies buzzing around its wounds. Must be very irritating.
May 13: Seal above high tide line, in the shade except for late afternoon hours.
May 14: Seal absent this day, unless it was hiding somewhere I couldn’t see from my two vantage spots.
May 16: Seal far up above high tide line, next to the bluff. The tides were extremely high and low for a few days.
May 18: Seal next to the bluff again. A juvenile eagle that had been perched nearby glided off. Eye level with me up on the headland.
May 19: same, but 30 feet or so down beach
May 21: same, but another location
This day a dozen or so turkey vultures circled the headland above where the seal was hauled out. That’s a lot of vultures! They were there for about an hour. As with the eagles, I did not see any vultures get close to the seal. Turkey vultures are strictly carrion feeders, and myths notwithstanding, they do not circle a dying animal waiting for it to expire (turkeyvulturesociety.wordpress.com/...). But they may have drawn by the scent of its injuries while passing by. As I was watching the vultures, I also saw the seal lift its head and move about some.
This was the last day I saw the seal. It had used the beach as a resting and recovery site for two weeks at least, and then she departed for good.
The SeaDoc folks left the barrier tape up for another week, in case she decided to return.
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As you might imagine, I was keenly interested in what would happen once she was out at sea again. Since I knew elephant seals haul out at Race Rocks, along with Steller sealions, California sealions and Harbour seals (as the Canadians call them), I emailed the Warden of Race Rocks, Garry Fletcher. Garry and other faculty of Pearson College UWC in Victoria (www.ca.uwc.org/… ) persuaded BC Parks to designate the rocks as an Ecological Reserve in 1980 and the area has been staffed by a rotating cadre of student and staff Ecoguardians since then, under the management of Pearson College and Fletcher. Race Rocks and nearby Race Passage take their name from the currents that rip through there at over 7 knots at times. Those currents and the craggy reefs create a rich marine ecosystem with lots of food for marine mammals and the remote protected rocks draw all kinds of wildlife, including some elephant seals.
In response to my query about whether the Race Rocks staff had seen this seal, he said they hadn’t as yet although there are a few there right now, coming and going. But I was reassured to hear his opinion about her state. He said elephant seals are very tough and from the the photos I sent, her injuries didn’t look bad, that she was likely to survive. Garry described the story of Slash, the bull elephant seal seriously injured by a motor boat strike in 2003 who recovered over the next year from his many deep prop cuts. Slash was seen at Race Rocks for years after that, in fine form. (www.racerocks.ca/...)
I hope the seal who chose our local beach to rest up and recuperate from her prop injuries is out at sea now, far from land, the true home of elephant seals. Most are, by late June. She may show up at Race Rocks next winter for the breeding season, or possibly before. Or never. Garry says the current Ecoguardian will be keeping an eye out for her, and I’m reading the regular reports posted about the wildlife there for any sign she’s passing through. But as with most wild animals in nature, we humans cross paths with them rarely and unpredictably. If I hear any news about her, I’ll pass it along here at the Bucket.
I hope she’s doing well, wherever she is.
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What’s up in your natural neighborhood today?
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