Elephant Seal

Male elephant seals arrive at breeding beaches a few weeks before the females to establish territories. Then competition among the males is fierce: they engage in bloody fights to claim territories where females are likely to congregate. Shortly after the females arrive and the breeding colony, they give birth to single pups conceived in the previous mating season. The females are not ready to mate again until their pups are weaned four weeks later. Many larger males attempt to mate with the females too soon after they give birth; many females are injured and 10 percent of the pups are killed.
Elephant seals feed primarily on fish and squid. Until recently, very little was known about their hunting behaviour; recent studies have shown that they make extraordinarily deep dives of over 3,000 feet. In this deep water they catch bottom-dwelling prey. Although elephant seals have long canine teeth, only the inch-long tips protrude through the gums. This and their dull molars make it difficult for them to feed on anything but soft-bodied prey.
With the exception of breeding season, elephant seals come ashore only to shed their skin, a process known as molting. In late summer, hundreds of seals gather on the beaches and wallow in muddy pools of water. They lie close together while they gradually shed patches of hair and skin. Eventually, the old skin is replaced by a new coat of sleek fur, and the seals return to the water.
Origininally land animals, elephant seals have adapted to life in the sea by developing a thick layer of insulating fat, called blubber, that keeps them warm. The blubber also serves as a reserve store of food. Elephant seals move gracefully in the water. They propel themselves wit their fins and use their forelimbs to change direction. On land, they use their forelimbs to move across the beach.
The southern elephant seal lives and breeds in the Antarctic. The northern elephant seal is found along the west coast of North America and breeds off the California coast. The northern elephant seal was virtually wiped out by seal hunters at the end of the nineteenth century. Numbers have now recovered, and neither species is currently in danger.

We got our information from the "Wildlife Fact File".


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