Do elephant seals practice social distancing? Spring is busy time on SLO County beaches

The Piedras Blancas elephant seal viewpoint remains open to the public north of San Simeon. Its mile-long boardwalk and trail provide plenty of space for visitors to see the seals while maintaining social distance.

The seals, however, pile up on each other.

Spring is the most crowded season of the year for Piedras Blancas. Adult female seals return to the beach, along with male and female juvenile seals.

You’ll see other wildlife from the viewpoint. Brown pelicans are frequent visitors, harbor seals rest on the rocks at low tide and an occasional sea otter swims through.

Female elephant seals back, molting on beaches

More than 5,500 females gave birth on the Piedras Blancas beaches earlier in the year.

After nursing reduced their stores of blubber, they needed to go out and feed. They return in spring, their fat supplies somewhat restored from 10 weeks or so of feeding. Females can gain two pounds a day when they are foraging at sea.

All other adult females, who didn’t have a pup this year, plus thousands of youngsters, come to the beach to molt their skin.

It’s easy to see their skin, with its hair, peeling off. Old brown skin curls back to reveal new, pearly gray skin underneath.

They look ratty, with sections of the old brown skin peeling off, but they’re fine.

It’s a normal process called a “catastrophic molt.” Other seals molt, but more gradually, a few cells and hairs at a time, so it isn’t so noticeable.

Elephant seals spend much of their lives 1,000 feet and deeper in the ocean. The pressure at that depth may account for the unusual annual molt.

The process takes about six weeks. Since seals arrive on the beach individually, starting and stopping at different times, you can see seals at any stage of molting.

Some had already completed their molt in mid-April, while many seals had not yet arrived on the beach. Look for the ragged edges of skin peeling back, seals that are entirely brown or entirely gray.

They arrive on the beach one by one. The new skin is already forming beneath the old skin.

Within a few days, the old skin begins to peel off — first around body openings such as eyes and nose, and around scars. Bits and pieces float across the beach, where ground squirrels pick up bits.

The new skin being exposed is pearly gray. The new hairs that are just beginning to emerge are transparent at first.

As the new coat grows, the seals look smooth and sleek, except for any old scars. Those are permanent.

Adult males will return in July and August, when they molt their skin.

Pup embryos develop

The adult females are ready to start on next year’s pups.

Something, perhaps stopping eating, triggers the females’ bodies to allow the egg fertilized at the end of the breeding season to begin developing into an embryo.

After they finish molting and return to the ocean, that embryo will implant in the uterine wall and begin normal development.

When they leave the beach after molting, adult females will remain at sea for seven to eight months, until they return to give birth next January.

Juveniles will return to the beach in the fall.