Donut On Shore

Thoughts On A Seal Pup and Care

A couple weeks ago after getting rattled, stuck between the oncoming heavy swell and a strong rip current, I slipped out of the water, figuring that not much, especially a hobby, is worth dying over. Looking behind me at the ocean I saw, lumbering up the shore, a small seal. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but after seeing it yawn, its little snout curling over its mouth, I had a guess that it was an elephant seal pup. As I walked up toward the parking lot, it seemed to follow in my direction, not necessarily following me, though it felt like it. Its giant cavernous eyes looked around as it heaved for breath, shook by the same waves that told me to give up with the ocean for now as well. A man and his off leash poodle walked toward me and the seal pup, but I waved him away, the man thankfully understanding and walking around.

I figured it had gone through something similar as me—just tired from an ocean a little too formidable for the moment. It just needed a little rest. Only, its skin was limp over its body, as if it had just quickly lost a lot of weight. Someone on shore said that its skin might be like that of a dog, soft and loose when they’re young. But I sorta doubted it. 

As I got my wetsuit off, a nice local surfer called the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, urging them to come so no one would bother the animal. When I returned he said it was a good idea for me to call as well, that way they would come sooner rather than later. He eventually left and went into the ocean, his friend sitting there with the seal pup, now only a foot away from the parking lot. 

Once I called and took some photos for the Marine Mammal Center, I left to get a coffee. The Center texted back, telling me it was an elephant seal pup, and that it was completely normal to see this one at Linda Mar, or Taco Bell by the beach for people who don’t know the area. 

In the spring, I read a bit later, the elephant seal parents leave their children on the beaches where they were born, the pups having to learn how to hunt and fend for themselves largely on their own. As they do this, sometimes the newness of the long swims and challenges of finding food become so much they just pop over to any beach they can find for a rest. Usually they’ll sit there for a couple of hours, recouping, then go on their way. 

But this seal, now in the care of the MMC and named Donut, wasn’t just recouping. Those loose areas of skin meant the animal hadn’t eaten for a while and was likely malnourished, meaning that the large swell that had just cropped up was too much for the four or so month old critter. And so, some humans out of a desire to care, so incongruent with our society at large, took this creature in and are in the midst of caring for the pup. It’s not a small task to care for something so in need of it.

Maybe this is just the human in me, but I think I understand the harshness of elephant seals, their bloody and ferocious fights on beaches up and down the coast—they had to learn how to survive pretty much on their own, without any teaching. I picture these pups, scared, left at shore, unsure where to go next. Eventually, they have to learn to evade great white sharks on their own (unless they are an alpha male, which at times can be larger than a full grown great white). From that moment of loss, they become hardened to the ocean and each other, without care. But without this maternal or paternal nurture, they are self assured, at peace with quiet moments, knowing they are the ones who have brought themselves through each harsh moment. 

But we humans aren’t quite like this, though we love to talk a big game, especially in the US, about how good we are on our own. We love care. We love the safety of being in community with each other, even to the point we will put ourselves into painful situations just to remain a part, rather than suffer being separated, lost like these little elephant pups, on our own in the world. Even now, while everything I’ve done lately has been completely of my own volition and has left me satiated and content in a way I haven’t felt for a minute, I am exhausted, in need of a break from all of this being a part of something, of thinking, of giving, of receiving. It’s a good kind of exhaustion, but the peace of solitude I romanticize about these elephant seals sounds nice at the moment. I’m sitting here, imagining I’m on some hidden beach near the lighthouse in Point Reyes, basking in the sun, listening to the ocean, certain that I alone with chance brought me here—all I have to care for is myself. But that’s not how we operate, though we pretend it’s like that so often.

P.S. Maybe elephant seals care more than I think. Here is a video of an elephant seal fending off a great white from a colony of elephant seals.