I managed to be driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, a beautiful stretch of road, when I came across the elephant seals in mating season. Elephant seals are, in my opinion, terrifically ugly. Hugely fat beasts with mutated looking heads. Sort of like the people you see at a buffet in downtown Vegas. The farts these things let loose made birds fly from trees. Seriously, they are foul creatures. Lots of fighting and tossing sand around and full on belching into each other’s faces. And there are hundreds of them, flopping about in the sand as far as the eye can see. Apparently it’s kind of a turn on when the male Elephant Seal walks up to he female and lets loose a huge giant fish belch directly into her face. But hey, we’re all different.
In this video, one male takes umbrage at another and chases him around as other seals cheer him on with absurd beeps and honks. At one point they both raise up in the air to belch at one another. But because he’s so grossly overweight, one of them gets tired and flops to the ground as the other one makes his getaway.
If you’re still interested, you’re in luck. Mating season is just around the corner. In January. Of course we’ll all be dead by then, but if we aren’t, you can see the Elephant seals just north of Cambria, about two miles south of Hearst castle.
For more information, go here. For more information than you probably want to know about elephant seals, go here.
