One of the great things about my job is to be able to talk to some of the world's greatest and most charismatic scientists, like Professor Dan Costa of UC Santa Cruz. I remember trying to get a hold of Professor Costa in December, when my colleagues and I were researching TV story ideas for the fifth season of QUEST. We were eager to do a story on elephant seals, focusing on their rookery at Año Nuevo, but we knew that to tell this story, we needed to secure the participation of Dan Costa, a foremost expert on these amazing animals.

Dan Costa has been studying elephant seals since the mid-1970s, and has been at the forefront of using satellite tags, time and depth recorders and other sophisticated electronic tags to gather information about the amazing depths to which elephant seals dive, their migration routes and how they use oceanographic features to hunt for prey as far as the international dateline and the Alaskan Aleutian Islands.

I recall finally catching Professor Costa by phone on a Friday evening at a rare moment when he was in his office and had time to talk. During a conversation that lasted no more than 20 minutes, he emailed me some background articles on elephant seals he had authored, answered a few questions about his current research, confirmed his availability for an interview in January, suggested another graduate student to also interview for our story and gave me the name of another student in his lab with whom to coordinate filming of the recovery of a satellite tag from a female elephant seal sometime in January or February.

UC Santa Cruz Professor Dan Costa standing next to the bluff outside the Long Marine Laboratory in Santa Cruz.

My thrill in securing the participation of Professor Costa was tempered by the logistical reality of getting time with this immensely busy researcher who traveled for months on end to exotic locales, including Antarctica, Australia and the Galapagos Islands. Fortunately, Professor Costa cleared his calendar to accommodate our crew for four hours albeit the day before leaving for a research trip to study seals and penguins in Antarctica.

My boss, QUEST Series Producer Amy Miller, suggested that I ask Professor Costa some additional questions, time permitting at the end of our main interview on elephant seals, which could be used for a two-minute profile of him as part of our recurring segment, "Why I Do Science".

Within the first minute of my interview with Professor Costa, I knew that he would make a phenomenal "Why I Do Science" profile. His nearly forty years of fieldwork around the world, to study a diverse array of marine animals, including albatrosses, seals and penguins, would provide a rich trove of experiences to mine and subsequently craft into a compelling portrait of a scientist passionate about science.

What I didn't know at the time is that in addition to being a highly skilled marine biologist, Professor Costa is also a talented photographer. This would prove to be a huge boon, as I would need photos of the animals he had studied over the years, as well as photos of him through the years working with marine animals around the world.

Weddell seals sleeping on the ice at the McMurdo station in Antarctica, where Dan Costa and his graduate students conducted research in early 2011. Image courtesy Dan Costa.

Over the next couple of months, he sent me a couple dozen photos, including photos he was taking in the field (or rather, on the ice) at McMurdo Station, a research center located in Antarctica. I marveled at the quality of the photos – beautifully framed, expertly exposed and richly illustrative of the hardy animals and the wind-battered tundra they called home.

After making my photo selects, I wrote the script and asked Professor Costa for any video he or one of his students may have filmed during their months of fieldwork in Antarctica, weighing and tagging Weddell seals.

Just in the nick of time, a day or two before the start of my edit, a DVD arrived containing video clips Professor Costa had personally filmed while in Antarctica. The highlight of the DVD was the material filmed just inches from Weddell seal pups; there they were, on the ice, vocalizing, looking straight into the camera – a furry bundle of wide-eyed, barking curiosity, wondering perhaps who was this tourist, swaddled in a red parka, ice clinging to his beard, braving the elements to see me up close?

Then I smiled and pressed play again and again, watching the seal pups wriggle and bark, seemingly oblivious to the unimaginably cold, harsh environment, thankful of my good fortune in securing the participation of this intrepid scientist with a camera for this latest edition of "Why I Do Science".

This weekend, I went to Año Nuevo State Reserve to see the elephant seals, along with 14 Oakland middle schoolers. Some friends at The Lawrence Hall of Science, where I work, needed an extra driver for a field trip. I’d never been to Año Nuevo before, so I volunteered. We had a great trip—warm weather, a terrific tour guide, and plenty of animals to observe. Those perceptive middle schoolers narrowed in on a few salient facts about elephant seal life.

We took a guided walk through the sand dunes with a docent named Bob. He started and ended the tour with poems by John Muir, peppered the kids with questions, and told us some amazing info about elephant seals. He had elephant seal whiskers in his pocket, and a piece of molted skin, which he passed around to the students. They were simultaneously repulsed and fascinated. After two hours in the warm sun, peering at elephant seals through binoculars and snapping photos with cell phones, we were headed back. During our long walk from the beach to the parking lot, I asked a few kids what they found most interesting about the elephant seals. And when we got back the parking lot, we asked the kids to share with a partner what they learned about the seals, and what they still wondered. Here are the top three things that middle schoolers noticed about elephant seals.

1. Elephant seals mate. Right in front of you. And… it’s sort of violent. Males move in on the females, and sometimes bite them so they won’t struggle. As our tour guide explained, pregnant female elephant seals come onshore to give birth in December. When they head out to sea a few months later, they’re pregnant again. They’ll return to Año Nuevo and repeat the process again next year. As one girl put it, “I wouldn’t like to have a baby every year. And I wouldn’t like it if I couldn’t pick who dad would be.” From the sounds of some of those female elephant seals, they may feel the same way.

2. Elephant seal moms are mean. They nurse their babies for about a month, and then leave the babies to fend for themselves. Elephant seal milk is super fatty—the pups gain up to 250 pounds during their month of nursing. Once they’re fattened up, the moms take off. The pups are then called weaners, and they live off their fat while they learn to swim and fish for themselves. About 50% of the weaners will survive the year. However, some weaners don’t even make it off the beach. We saw a skinny-looking little elephant seal, all alone, making meager movements of its flippers to flick sand onto its body to keep cool. It was forlorn and wrinkly, not glossy, fat, and round like its neighbors. Bob said it probably wouldn’t survive. It likely got separated from its mother before it had gotten fat enough to get through the weeks without food. The students were really upset about the fact that we were standing on the sand dunes, basically watching this little elephant seal die.

A dominant male elephant seal shows who’s boss.

3. Elephant seals can be huge. The dominant males, called bulls, can be up to 16 feet long. This is three times the height of Justin Beiber, who, as I learned on the drive out, is only 5 foot 4. Big male elephant seals can move improbably quickly across the sand, to defend their harem from smaller males who try to mate with the females on the sly. In their rush to scare away the interlopers, the big bulls sometimes mow down little elephant seal pups. The small pups are basking in the sun, and can’t get out of the way in time. About 5% of the pups at Año Nuevo are crushed under adult seals. We might have seen a pup get mowed down. Maybe. Its rear flippers might have been squished; we weren’t really sure. The little guy moved a bit, but then stopped moving. Then it moved again. And then it was time to go.

Look!

These kids will go on a series of field trips throughout the year, to tidepools and marine labs, as part of a Lawrence Hall of Science program funded by a California Coastal Commission Whale Tail Grant. The Coastal Commission awards dozens of grants for youth programs and coastal cleanups. The funding comes from the sales of the Whale Tail license plate.

Learn more about elephant seals in Sheraz Sadiq’s QUEST blog post, Diving to New Scientific Depths with Elephant Seals.

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The Galapagos of California: The Farallon Islands.

Every so often the fog retreats from my neighborhood in San Francisco, moves out to sea and we are blessed with a world-class sunset. Adding to the oranges and reds, yellows and spiraling indigos of the evening sky, it also gives us a special chance to see the silhouette of the strange jagged fist of rock breaking up the crisp line of the horizon. I have gazed out upon the Farallon Islands for years. The archipelago is clearly the wildest part of The City-seemingly always just out of reach. (Many people don’t realize that these little islands are actually part of the City of San Francisco.) Since they are a federally protected wildlife refuge, they’re completely closed to the public. So to get a chance to actually set foot on South Farallon Island was an absolute honor.

We’ve tried to share the experience in as many ways as we can. I encourage everyone to really explore the islands through Quest. In addition to the television story, we have a radio presentation with reporter’s notes, a web exploration with video and stills, a unique audio slideshow, an interactive history timeline (also embedded below) and a Flickr set. We’ll also be adding another web-only video story and education guide. The only things we couldn’t bring you are the smell and chill of the wind. But we’ll get on that.

Farallon Islands History: Interactive Timeline

Watch the The Farallon Islands – "California's Galapagos" television story online.

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A Northern Elephant Seal at Ano Nuevo State Park.

We headed west, then south down the coast to the site of the largest mainland breeding colony of the massive Northern Elephant Seal: Ano Nuevo State Reserve.

The Northern Elephant Seal is named for the large, protruding nose, or proboscis on the male of the species. Like elephants, they are also gigantic. The bulls can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh up to 5000 lbs, while the females are much smaller.

On a hike guided by a knowledgeable naturalist volunteer, Scott, our staff spent 1.5 hours traipsing over the dunes to see the winter breeding action of this charismatic pinniped. Getting respectfully close, we first saw what they referred to as "Loser Males". Though this term felt a bit un-PC (how about "mating-challenged?"), the idea is that these males are not old enough or savvy enough to be an alpha or beta male. They are simply not in the competition this year, so they lounge away from the females, thermo-regulating by flipping sand on themselves and holding fins up into the ocean breeze.

We then came upon a pile of weaners. This is another fine term used to describe the young pups that are newly weaned from Mom. These co-ed pods spend time losing some of their 300 lbs of milk fat while they learn to swim in the rain water pools. Born at 70 lbs, pups are nursed for a month or so before they gain weight and take on their new role as weaners. Some pups nurse from two or three females and gain up to 600 lbs. These are then dubbed Super Weaners. The weaners are the last to leave the site, waiting until the adults have gone to take their time swimming away in the salty waves.

Towards the shore the real show was on; Females (cows) gathered in harams, some nursing pups. Males (bulls) fought other males, or at least postured, in order to establish dominance and control of the harams. In one case, a masculine fellow came after another male, blubbering up towards him with full barks, only to then claim his seawater puddle. The fights between males are usually short, but very dramatic and violent. According to Scott, an Alpha Male Elephant Seal in mating-mode has more testosterone than any other mammal.

Our staff left feeling like weaners ourselves; happy and exhausted, but not as exhausted as Scott, whom I am sure has never fielded as many questions as he did for our staff!

Breeding Season at Ano Nuevo is December 15-March 31. In spring and summer, the elephant seals return to molt.

The Ano Nuevo Interpretive Program is excellent and popular. Book a guided tour and check out the dominance displays!

After your tour, visit the gift shop at the site. On your way home, I recommend the town of Pescadero for artichoke bread at Arc Angel Grocery Company & Bakery or the San Gregorio General Store.

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.

latitude: 37.1266, longitude: -122.3344