Pupping

They behaved like rambunctious children – playful, and inquisitive. They’d also never seen a kayaker before. Three-month-old northern fur seal pups were almost knocking me out of my kayak while paddling around Point Bennett on San Miguel Island.

May and June are an exciting time to be on the Channel Islands National Park. There’s anticipation hovering in the air like a damp blanket of fog cloaking the northern chain of islands. Island fox pups are being born, but there are other mammals birthing as well.

Besides those Yoda-like fur seal pups, other pinnipeds such as California sea lions and spotted harbor seals are also being born on remote, wind-groomed beaches, and deep within toothy, wave-battered sea caves. 

Hard to say what looks cuter. I’m on the fence on that one, with all three vying for the top spot on the cuteness barometer. Some of it is personality. Harbor seals are definitely the sweetest. Fur seals possess lots of attitude. Sea lions are curious to a point but generally keep their distance. I think I tend to lean towards harbor seals.

Harboring Good Will

I spend more time with harbor seals at the islands than any other seal or sea lion species, and their pug-like faces are precious. Sometimes they appear as if they’re smiling back at you. 

The pups are only with their mums for two months, and then they are on their own. So, during those two months, they are gorging on mom’s milk. From my kayak, they’ll swim up from underneath and jostle around the boat, and even rub their muzzles against the hull like a scratch post.

When I’m leading tours through the sea caves on the southeast end of Santa Cruz Island, sometimes harbor seals will follow us from cave to cave. I’ve even had them rub themselves on my heels, my callouses built up over 50 years of surfing cobbled shorelines and launching and landing kayaks in uncomfortable places.

I’m always amazed how relaxed and comfortable harbor seals look hauled out on rocky slabs. They look like they’re doing planks. And like we humans, they have their favorite places to hang out. I know one harbor seal, always spotted near a sea cave we call “Limbo.” It hauls out on the same rock when the tide permits.

Whatever it Takes

In all seriousness, I’ve guesstimated paddling through the sea caves surrounding Scorpion Anchorage several thousand times. Twenty-two years of guiding, plus my own personal trips, the islands on a whole have been a great office. It’s enabled me to interact with wildlife in a unique way from my kayak. I’ll say it until I can’t, but kayaking is the best way to experience these windswept isles and their unique inhabitants.

While leading a trip during the early part of June, I noticed a female California sea lion in kind of an unusual place. During kayak tours, the first cave I paddle guests through is known as “Elephant’s Belly.” It’s the first cave just northwest of Scorpion Anchorage. It’s all cliff and cobbled shorelines until we get to the massive grotto. Just before reaching it, there’s a little nook of boulders, a combination of rockslides and the ocean continually rearranging the coastline. This was where I saw this concerned female sea lion.

She was sitting upright and she was facing the ocean. Every few seconds she dipped her elongated snout into a small tide pool trapped behind the bigger cobble. At first, I couldn’t figure out what she was up to. Then she grabbed her newborn pup by the scruff of its neck and began hoisting it upward away from the shoreline as the tide crept in. On one occasion, she grabbed it and flung it up into the rocks.

I reasoned that she had to give birth right then and there. She was doing what she had to. It wasn’t an ideal place but she had to give her teary-eyed pup a chance. After moving her pup far enough away from the incoming tide, an opportunistic raven flew in, and on the fly snatched the nutrient-rich placenta, taking it to the towering cliffs above to feed.

Then the female sea lion shielded her pup from the stiff northwest winds while nestling against a boulder. Her tiny pup awkwardly inched forward across the cobble and nursed. It was its first few moments of life on the island, born in a tidepool and nursing in wave-battered crags. Nature can sometimes be unforgiving.