Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

the harem. From this it appeared that bulls can recognize a stronger bull on sight and
the roar may be secondary.
Weather next day 8 November was bitter at times. I worked on marine biology
collections in the morning and went round the harems in the afternoon. In shallow
water near the digesters two young bulls were engaged in bouts of mock-fighting. A
medium-sized bull and a young cow were gamboling in the water offshore from
Pebble Beach. They were striking each other's necks with their chins. Then the male
placed its flipper lazily over the cow several times as if in a prelude to copulation; the
cow lay quiescent and then both began to play again. I observed a young male asleep
in the water off the beach and timed its breathing rhythm. Next day after doing the
seal weights and measurements and making other records, I went on round the
harems and back via the giant petrel colonies. Some small elephant males were now
beginning to appear. It was fine at times with intermittent blizzards.
Next day was another foul day and when I went round the harems, the numbers
now falling off as cows left. On 11 November the yellow bull was lying 60 yards
south of the cemetery and had apparently been eating mud; its mouth was full of it
and there was a vile smell. (However, in light of my later observations of elephant
seals ‘vomiting’ sand and gravel before they go foraging, this may not have been
eating, but voiding before going to sea. I came to believe that they ate gravel and
stones when they came ashore to mediate the stomach pangs of a long fast and sicked
them up when they went off to sea).
All the elephant breeding activity had been on the east side of Signy and when,
on 13 November, we went up to the top of Tioga Hill we saw only three elephant
seals in Port Jebsen and Cummings Cove. The yellow harem was still on Drying
Point. Over the next few days the green bull was present and the yellow bull was still
ashore. The former was now very emaciated indeed and held only three cows with
two pups in his harem (we were still weighing the elephant pups.) An influx of nonbreeding
males had begun, so that there were now 41 medium-sized bulls and four
large ones in Stygian Cove and numbers were increasing in the Wallows area. .
A week or so later scarred-bull was found in charge of the yellow beach harem.
Later he copulated in 2 ft of water with a cow that had left the harem; she escaped
and the bull chased her. A new bull, which had been lying ten yards north, now
moved up to the harem, but the cows all refused copulation; two of them were snowflipping.
The ice foot was so high that scarred-bull would not be able to get back to
his harem until the next high tide! The green bull had now given up and moved to
the Wallows, 64 days after our first definite sighting and 45 days since he first
acquired a harem; he was still fasting – it was astonishing!
Over the next two weeks I prepared graphs etc. for my elephant seal Report,
writing and typing it and still weighing pups – we added three heavy ones now 270,
280 and 291 lbs, to the records! The breeding season was virtually over and nonbreeding
elephants were rapidly increasing in numbers around the shores. It was
getting crowded and one morning we even found an elephant seal lying near the
Nissen hut.
In December 1948 the number of elephants hauled out was increasing I was
making various observations on the seals in the bay and on 14 December made a seal
count in Borge Bay, finding 1,242 in total, including very few females, but still twelve
pups about. On 30 December I counted 107 elephants in Paal Harbour.
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