Rain, Males and Pups in the News

With much needed rain falling in the area, it does make for a difficult time capturing the latest goings-on ! However, the usual cast of characters are making their appearance...the exciting BIG males, the bursting-to-the-seams pregnant females, left-over busy youngsters, as well as the hungry newborn pups.

Fleeing Confrontation

The first birth of the season, caused much excitement as it took place a little earlier than usual this year, coming before the middle of December !

First Birth

Once again, dragged out and bloody fights between big alpha males have been largely absent. The females, on the other hand, are continuing last year's extremely feisty behavior. Where all this leads to will indeed be interesting !

Squabbling Females

Every once in a while you get an eager-beaver adult male wanting to mate before the female's in heat. When this happens, it's usually with the younger females.

Trying His Luck

Click here for photos of the season.

Click here for video of the Ultimate 5,000lb Male Challenge. Wait till the end as I have to run away from the huge male who wants to challenge ME !

Mainly Young Males

Even though some of the Fall Haul Out participants are still lounging around, the males of varying ages are the ones attracting the most attention with their almost constant dominance games.

All too soon, though, these younger males will be usurped by the giant adult males and the pregnant females longing to give birth.

Click here to see some of the antics of younger males captured for eternity.

With the weather acting oddly, it's going to be interesting to see if the elephant seal behavior is any different from last year when the females were extremely aggressive from the get-go. They were so aggressive that as far as I could tell, most males were unsuccessful in their mating attempts.

Click here to watch video of virile young males.