Piotr Angiel Photography: Austral Summer with Southern Elephant Seals on King George Island

Every year southern elephant seals migrate to the Antarctic beaches where they were born to reproduce and to mold after the breeding season. As the Antarctic summer is really short, all is about the perfect timing. Males arrive first in the early October to fight for territories (a stretch of beach). After the territories are established, females arrive and within 4-5 days pups that were conceived in the previous season are born. Quickly after the birth it is mating time. Mothers will nurse the pups for another three to five weeks after their birth. Parents and non-breading seals stay on land to mold for another 3-4 weeks. During that time seals do not go to the sea, so they do not eat. This is the time when they like to keep together to be warm. After the molding in the mid-December elephant seals return to the sea to feed and build the resources in their bodies for the next breeding season. Bellow are two fragments about elephant seals from my first Antarctic Expedition diaries:

October 10, 2006

“(…) After long ten kilometers walk, including crossing the Ecology Glacier, we are near the Blue Dyke. For the first time this year I see a big harem of southern elephant seals. One monstrous male is controlling a group of 14 females with 12 pups. Around the group three smaller males are waiting for their chance. With Mariusz, we spend over half an hour observing the harem and listening to funny noises from the newly born pups. They sound like a mixture of barking, quacking and hiccups. The pups are completely black, about one meter long and have friendly “smiles”. They keep close to their mothers drinking very nutrient and fat rich milk (over 50% of fat!). I admire the size of the alpha male, which is almost 5 meters long and weighs about 3.5 tones. Alerted with our presence the ‘beachmaster’ rises several meters above the ground. We are aware that he will try to chase us away tramping newborns and their mothers, we quickly move away. It is getting late, and it is time to go back to our field hut (a trailer) in the Paradise Cove and prepare late supper. Tonight the executive chef (Mariusz) recommends Korean instant soups with noodles. After the meal we finish the leftover vodka from the last stay and make some hot wine. Around midnight, after long scientific discussions we fall asleep."


Inside the field hut ("Predom" trailer), evening of October 10, 2006 (photo by Mariusz Potocki)

October 11, 2006

"I wake up before 8. I look through foggy plastic windows of our trailer. It is cloudy; the sky is over casted with grey stratocumulus. Around 9 we make breakfast – reheated chicken in parsley sauce from 1 liter jar. It reminds us a pre-cooked meal from a grandmother. We got the food before we left our station from our cook Michal. After the meal we pack our backpacks and go. On the way to the Patelnia we stop in the Blue Dyke to see the elephant seals one more time. Since yesterday 2 more females have arrived and 3 more pups were born. One of the pups must have been born just before we came. Snow around the mother and pup is still yellow-green from fetal fluids. Antarctic sheathbills and kelp gulls are fighting for the afterbirth. Here in Antarctica nothing can be wasted. White birds look like macabre nurses covered in yellow, green and bloody stains.

After taking some pictures we start to climb on the Sugar Mound and go to the Patelnia. On flat beaches two big harems have formed. When we get to the first one, some giant petrels are flying away from a fresh carcass of an elephant seal pup which was smashed by fighting males of elephant seals. In the group are 97 females with 42 pups; in the middle there is a huge alpha male looking like a lonely island. It is several times larger than females. Elephant seals adapted to breed during very short Antarctic “summer”. The uterus has two chambers, so the fertilization is possible shortly after the delivery. After the fertilization the fetus develops for several days and then the development is stopped so that the pup is born next October. Therefore, large males are only interested in females, and during their fights a lot of pups are killed. Success of the dominant male depends on his success in heavy weight fights. The battle is not to win a particular female or a group of females. The battle is to win the best and the most attractive stretch of beach, which is easily accessible and attracts the largest number of females. Winning the best spot is restricted to real giants, typically over 10 years old and over 3.5 tones. However, the smaller and younger males also have their chance. They wait on the margins of large harems for a moment when the alpha male is fighting or is busy with a female. This is their chance. The genetic studies have shown that about 30% of pups are from those “sneakers”.

We go to count the seals in the second harem on the Patelnia, which is located on a shore bar between a lagoon and Bransfield Strait. Here, the alpha male is controlling 62 females with 19 pups. Around the harem on ice of the frozen lagoon 3 males are waiting for their moment. They are covered with blood and deep cuts from tusks of the dominant male. The alpha male rises up on his front flippers making loud low rearing marking his territory. I realize that one of the females is in labor already. I can see contractions and a head of a pup sticking out. Around the female sheathbills are already waiting for their chance, one of them is eating the umbilical cord which is still attached to one-day-old pup. Unfortunately, it is getting late and we can not wait for the birth. It is time to go back to the station to use low tides and be back home before it gets dark."