Meet the Marion Island elephant seal pups
The elephant seal breeding season started when all the male elephant seals came back to the beaches to claim their territories in August. There were a lot of fights to own these beaches! The females came to give birth later in August.
Me and my seal peeps, er, pups
Here I am channelling my inner elephant seal whisperer. The penguins are in awe.
They're really not afraid of people, as you can see.
Weighing in
Now occasionally I help the sealers of Marion Island to weigh the elephant seal pups or weaners; the heaviest one this time around was 170kg.
Heavy!
They are weighed after their moms leave them to feed in the ocean and come back for molting season.
Nature has her way
Not every baby makes it, unfortunately.
Those dead babies may have died of natural causes but most probably the "beach master", as we call him, squashed them as he was moving around the harem - mostly that is what happens.
On rare occasions seabirds will kill the baby seals if they are left unattended since they're defenceless. Not for the squeamish: typically they will start with the eyes and eventually eat the whole thing.
The seabirds around these dead babies are Northern and Southern Giant Petrels, Brown Skuas and Lesser sheath bill.
The Beach Master
Meet the Beach Master. This hefty fellow is an elephant seal male. They are estimated to weigh around 3000kg. Before you ask, no, we didn't weigh this one.
Thanks as always for stopping in!
All images taken by Maanda Raselabe and me.
Team South Africa banner designed by @bearone
3000kg is one heavy fellow.
Is it not dangerous to get close to them as in your photos??
Very nice and interesting post!!
We do have a healthy respect for them because they are so big and could crush us just by rolling on us. Thank you so much for reading and commenting.
It is awesome! I like your pictures and the way you write. Thank you for sharing!
If you like to read about travels and circus life please welcome to my friends @annamur
Thank you for those kind words, @annamur.
Very cool post. Your work is amazing. Thank you for sharing about the seals. 🐓🐓
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm about to post something about the island itself, so you can get an idea of the ecology. It's pretty amazing even without the birds and animals.
Loved your post :)
Thank you so much, @crowd4good. So glad you enjoyed it. By the way, you might think I'm really rude for not answering in three weeks, but our internet connection is so spotty here and we're out in the field so much that I don't often get the chance to check in. Even when we have internet, we often don't have enough bandwidth for Steemit. I've started following you and look forward to reading your posts when I can (literally - when I can read them).