When They Hit the Beach, It’s a Spectacle

Gary Strachen, supervising ranger at nearby Ano Nuevo State Reserve, told a small group of visitors what to expect on the way to the beach.

“You’re going to hear this loud ‘WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOP.’ Those are the big males vocalizing,” he said. “And you’re going to hear the females going ‘EEEEHHHHEEEE.’ And that’s what the males are after.”

One of the women in the group quickly put two and two together and remarked, “Horny little guys.” To which Strachen replied, “Well, they’re not horny little guys. When born they weigh 90 pounds, and they gain 10 pounds per day after that.”

He was referring to the northern elephant seals that flock to the beach by the hundreds every winter. They are quite an item, judging from the 43,000 people who flock to the beach annually to watch them.

“And we turn away just as many,” said Strachen, who lives on the 4,000-acre reserve, located 55 miles below San Francisco, between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.

Strachen doesn’t like to refer to it as such, but what they are basically coming to see, from December through March, is one of the wildest orgies in the animal kingdom, a matinee featuring sex and violence, and lots of it.

The strongest males, or “alpha” bulls, arriving after months at sea in early December, by now have long won their place atop the social ladder through fierce, bloody battles with other bulls. They have selected their harems, dozens upon dozens of females with whom they lounge around--and mate, often.

Then there are the “beta” bulls, those not quite strong enough to earn a harem of their own. They occasionally sneak in to other bulls’ harems, and they usually get caught.

When they do, the entire colony takes notice.

The massive mammals--adult males measure 14-16 feet and weigh up to 2 1/2 tons--square off in a classic battle pose and thrust their bodies into each other with incredible force, slashing at the necks of their opponents with four-inch canine teeth.

When the beta bull realizes the error of its ways and runs for cover, the alpha bull gives chase, two undulating masses of blubber racing down the beach.

This, of course, opens the door for other beta bulls, who move in quickly. They don’t have much time, though. The alpha bull, despite the tonnage he carries, moves exceptionally fast and will tolerate no such intrusions on his domain.

“One percent . . . no, less than one percent, of the males ever get to mate,” Strachen said.

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Northern elephant seals, so named because of the long, pendulous noses on the larger animals, once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the Pacific Ocean.

But they were hunted extensively throughout the 1800s for the oil in their blubber, and by 1892 there were believed to be as few as 50 animals left, in a colony at Guadalupe Island off Baja California.

Mexico gave them protected status in 1922, and the United States immediately did so when the seals started showing in Southern California a few years later. Today, there are about 120,000 elephant seals, with established colonies at Guadalupe Island, San Miguel Island of the Channel Islands, the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, Ano Nuevo Island and the Ano Nuevo State Reserve.

“We have the only established mainland colony,” Strachen said. “And because we’re a reserve, the animals feel safe coming on to the mainland now to breed and pup. In the old days they wouldn’t have come on to the beach, you know, because Griz [grizzly bears] was here, and of course the Ohlone Indians were here.”

The colony is a byproduct of the one at Ano Nuevo Island, located about 200 yards offshore, which over the years has been overrun by pinnipeds.

“We have 3,000 [elephant] seals here now, and come summer there will be about 10,000 California sea lions and 3,000 Steller sea lions, hundreds of harbor seals, 47 sea otters, the northern fur seal and the Guadalupe fur seal . . . so this is pinniped heaven,” Strachen said.

The first elephant seals showed on the island in 1955 and the colony grew every year. The animals, needing more room, began congregating on the beach at the reserve in the 1970s.

Tourists caught on about 10 years ago, and park officials soon realized that the number of visitors during the breeding season had to be restricted in the interest of safety to both them and the seals, which, surprisingly, are capable of incredible bursts of speed.

“We have had some accidents,” Strachen said, recalling the time a researcher was attacked from behind. “The seal broke the researcher’s back and knocked her down a dune, thank God, because otherwise the animal would have killed her.”

During the winter breeding season, visitors are allowed to view the animals only on guided walks--it is about a mile hike from the visitor center to the beach--with trained docents. Reservations are required, usually well in advance.

“We’ve tried to come before and couldn’t get in,” said Carmel’s Kathleen Walkey, watching lounging and carousing elephant seals from atop a large sand dune. “We called a month and a half ago to get in today. We had seen pictures, but we really never believed we would see all this. See those pups over there? One was just looking right at us from only a few feet away. This is unbelievable, it really is a wonderful sight.”

Strachen said that while people of all ages come from all over the world to witness this spectacle, emphasis is given to children on field trips and in outdoor education programs. “Our emphasis here is natural history interpretation and education,” he said.

The children learn about the history of the reserve, formerly the site of a dairy ranch that supplied products to San Francisco before and just after the turn of the century. The state bought the property in 1971, but many of the old buildings still stand, and one serves as the visitor center.

Bobcats, raccoons, cougars and coyotes still roam about, and birds range from gulls and pelicans to swifts, swallows, hawks and falcons.

But Strachen said no animal piques the visitors’ interest quite like the northern elephant seal.

Elephant seals spend most of their lives at sea, traveling to and beyond the Pacific Northwest, diving as deep as 5,000 feet in their search for fish and small sharks, on which they gorge heavily, putting on the blubber that has to sustain them through the winter at the colony.

“In late November, the big males start coming in, just like the Capistrano swallows,” Strachen said. “There are some yearlings and young males around then too.”

The females start showing in December, most of them pregnant from the previous winter’s stay. (Gestation is eight months, but the fertilized egg does not implant in the wall of the uterus for about three months, causing the delay and allowing the pups to be born on land.)

They almost immediately begin to give birth. “She nurses that pup for 23 to 26 days, then weans the pup, comes into estrous, gets mated [a process that lasts until March] and she’s outta here,” Strachen told the group he was leading. “She leaves. The pup is still here. We will see weaners, and yes, we see some orphan pups that the coyotes get. That’s natural selection. The western gulls, the coyotes, everything is going to come down here and have at [the pup]. This is like you going to Safeway.”

The males begin to leave shortly after the females, and by mid-March only the pups remain. “The pups will weigh about 300 pounds, and spend two to three months using up their fat reserves and learning how to swim and all that [before leaving],” Strachen said. “The females come back and molt in April and May, and then in June and July the males come back and molt.”

Then its back to the ocean for another round of feeding and gaining strength for the next winter’s fun and games.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Dan Sansome, owner of the American Angler out of Point Loma Sportfishing in San Diego, received a letter the other day from a couple in Singapore inquiring about an offer for a free trip aboard the long-range vessel.

The couple found the offer, of all places, sealed in a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed up on a small island in Indonesia. Turns out Sansome’s brother, Dennis, had signed the brochure “Shiner” (his nickname) and tossed it overboard a mile out of San Diego in 1994.

In a letter to Sansome dated Feb. 16, Alwyn Ko wrote: “We figured from the brochure that the American Angler cruises along the Mexican coast. If the bottle was truly tossed from there it went on an amazing journey.

“In about two years, it floated across the Pacific, bypassed the thousands of islands in Hawaii and Micronesia, wound its way through the maze of islands that make up the Philippines, New Guinea, Borneo and Indonesia and landed on Tanjong Said [a sandy bay].

” . . . Thus we are bursting with questions. Where was the bottle actually put to sea? When? Who is Shiner? What does the hand-written message mean? We hope you can clear up this fascinating puzzle for us.”

The message, “Good luck to the finder,” was merely in reference to the offer of a free trip. Sansome responded to Ko, who is considering a vacation to San Diego to take him up on his offer.

Surprisingly, Charlie Cowan, a cook on the vessel who threw a bottle overboard while on a trip off Mexico in 1994, received a reply Monday from a woman in the Philippines.

“He had put a dollar in the bottle to use as postage, and in the letter asked for a reply from whoever found the bottle,” said Judy Collins, a secretary at the landing. “It turns out she’s from a poor family, so it’s a good thing he added the dollar.”

SALMON RUN

Recreational salmon season began last Saturday south of Point Arena in Northern California. And Southland anglers may be in for another banner year. Ventura- and Santa Barbara-based boats have already picked up some fish to 16 pounds, which is a good sign: It wasn’t until April and May last year that salmon were being caught in record numbers. The Coast Guard estimated that nearly 400 boats worked an area south of the Golden Gate Bridge on opening day and limits were the rule. And before rough and rainy weather intervened, anglers out of Monterey were reporting similar success.

Wayward tuna: A large yellowfin tuna--a species that normally prefers tropical and sub-tropical regions--somehow made its way to the back of Long Beach Harbor on Saturday, only to be plucked out of the water with a gaff by two startled crew members aboard the Aztec. John Wegener, a tackle shop employee at Long Beach Sportfishing, said the fish weighed 96 pounds and was examined by biologists, and added that they guessed it had journeyed across the Pacific from Hawaii. “Nobody knows,” Wegener said. “It’s just one of those weird things that happen sometimes.”

MEMORIAL

Services were held last Friday for Patrick Slagle, a 36-year-old La Verne resident who died after the fishing boat he was on capsized in the Sea of Cortez. He is survived by his son, Cameron, 8. Those wishing to do so can send donations to the Cameron Slagle Trust, account No. 652126059, Trans World Bank, 18411 Soledad Canyon Rd., Canyon Country, 91351, attention Vickie Brown.