After the Hearst Tour, we visited another group of elephant seals, this time near Piedras Blancas. These are the immature males doing their “play-fighting,” learning to beat the crap out of one another when the girls show up in a month or two.
The Northern elephant seal returns to its terrestrial breeding ground in December and January, with the bulls arriving first. The bulls haul out on isolated or otherwise protected beaches typically on islands or very remote mainland locations. It is important that these beach areas offer protection from the winter storms and high surf wave action. The bulls engage in dramatic fights of supremacy to determine which few bulls will achieve a territory and harem. While fights are not usually to the death, they are brutal and often with significant bloodshed and injury; however, in many cases of mismatched opponents, the younger, less capable males are simply chased away, often to upland dunes.
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