A news report on elephant seal bulls “surfing up onto the sand” for the molting season at a famous California rookery reminded me of an extraordinary event that occurred last July in Mexico.
The accompanying footage shows a massive elephant seal hauling out and frightening a family of beachgoers in Mulegé on the Sea of Cortez.
Mulegé is not an established rookery and this family probably had never experienced a close encounter with a creature so large and ominous-looking.
It turned out that the wayward mammal, which was spotted multiple times, was simply resting before returning to sea.
Northern elephant seals are the largest ‘true’ seals in the Northern Hemisphere and can weigh as much as 5,000 pounds. Their range includes the eastern and central North Pacific, from Alaska to Baja California.
They spend most of their time feeding at sea and typically come ashore at rookeries only to give birth, breed, and molt. Elephant seals can dive 2,500 feet in search of prey. They feed primarily on squid and fish, including sharks and rays.
The nearest significant elephant seal rookery to Mulegé is hundreds of miles away and around the Baja California peninsula, at Guadalupe Island west of Ensenada.
