Females come into season and mate about
24 days after giving birth. The fertilized egg does not implant in the
wall of her uterus for about four months a rare phenomenon called "delayed
implantation". The theory is that the female is so weak after nursing and
fasting that she doesn't have enough energy to nourish the egg. Since the
seals' gestation period is seven months, this delay means that the young
will be born after the female reaches her breeding ground the following
year. The pups could not survive if born at sea. Adult females may mate
several times before returning to the ocean, abruptly weaning their pups
by desertion. By mid-March, most of the adult seals are gone, leaving the
pups behind.
When the weaned pups are four to six weeks
old, their original coat of black fur molts and is replaced by a shiny
new silver coat. Soon afterward, they begin learning to swim in the shallow
offshore waters or ponds formed by rainwater. They are very curious and
rather awkward and somewhat afraid of the water at first. But they
learn quickly, spend more and more time swimming about, and then, during
the last three weeks of April, they go to sea one by one and disperse northwestward.
They feed off the coast of northern Washington and Vancouver Island in
British Columbia and do not appear on land again until September.
Pinnipeds, like other mammals, must replace
old skin and hair. Most animals shed hairs year-around, but elephant seals
do it all at once. The molting process is so abrupt in the elephant seal
that it is called a catastrophic molt. During the spring and summer months,
elephant seals return to Año Nuevo for their annual molts.
April to May - Females and juveniles May to June - Sub-adult
males July to August - Adult males
At sea, elephant seals typically dive 20
minutes to a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 feet in search of food: rays, skates,
rat fish, squid, and small sharks. The maximum recorded depth is 5,015
feet by a male in 1991. The females eat nothing while they are giving birth,
nursing, and mating, and the males go without food for up to three
months at that time. They are preyed upon by killer whales and sharks.
