ELEPHANT SEAL ROLLS (SAUSAGE, NOT GREENLAND)
On my recent sailing and kayaking trip to the Antarctic Peninsula, I spent some time observing elephant seals......
A mound of resting elephant seals is rather like an untidy
row of almost-full (but well re-sealed) milk bags - all joggles and wiggles. With any movement, undulating waves propagate
through the blubber.
Now imagine that the enormous seal at the end - for some reason that does not seem to stem from an attack of sexual urgency (perhaps it is a mound of young males?) – decides to move to the middle of the mound-group.
Snorting and wiggling, he “huffulates” around the bottom of the pile, swims his thousand-pound bulk onto the top, and sink-wiggles his self between two of the bodies underneath him.
The whole pile snorts and groans and wriggles and writhes to make room until stasis is once again attained.
Elephant seals probably attain some grace when they are in
the water, swimming. But the mental image of these untidy bags of blubber chasing dinner
only provokes titters of disbelief!
