Males return to the same areas every year to hunt… Their fur provides some insulation from the cold Pacific waters, so they remain on the beach during this month-long process. They are very large and the males have what is similar to an elephant’s trunk on their face yet it is very short. They return to their rookeries in winter to breed and give birth. Some researchers believe that elephant seals nap on their glides down to the depths where they hunt — and they would have plenty of time as the depths are extreme. Inuit seal hunting accounts for the majority of the seal hunt, but just three percent of the hunt in southern Canada; it is excluded from the European Commission's call in 2006 for a ban on the import, export and sale of all harp and hooded seal products. In addition to starting the dive with this very large supply of oxygen, the elephant seal has the ability to utilize almost all of it on every dive, ending dives with oxygen concentration in the veins of less than 5% of maximum. Elephant seals migrate in search of food, spending months at sea and often diving deep to forage. Battling elephant seal males use their weight and teeth against each other. (GA image) Sneaker males hang out along the periphery of the rookery and try to mate when the harem master is asleep or busy. video to learn how to differentiate elephant seals from other pinnipeds. The shark, when hunting adults, is most likely to ambush a seal with a damaging bite and wait until it is weakened by blood loss to finish the kill. The Northern elephant seal is an Oregon Conservation Strategy Species in the Nearshore ecoregion. In a paper published in the journal PLOS One, researchers describe how they tracked four female southern elephant seals ( Mirounga leonina) as they hunted, recording the time, depth, and light levels. All Northern Seals are descended from one small surviving group which has resulted in a limited gene pool and compromised immune systems. The males are very large with a weight of up to 5,000 pounds. The seals may be solitary at sea, but become very social on the beach. Also, the heart and skeletal muscles of elephant seals have a density of myoglobin more than 8 times that of a human. Distribution and abundance. Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals.Seal hunting is currently practiced in ten countries: United States (above the Arctic Circle in Alaska), Canada, Namibia, Denmark (in self-governing Greenland only), Iceland, Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden. Do southern elephant seals socialize? Elephant seals are prey for orcas and great white sharks. It grabs the penguin by the leg and kills it by beating it on the surface of the water. The southern elephant seal is the largest of all the animals in the seal family. Discover how and why National Park Service scientists study the elephant seals at Point Reyes year after year. By being able to dive deep, elephant seals are able to leave behind competitors who might outcompete them back at the surface and to avoid shallow-roaming large predators that want to eat them. Southern elephant seals have a circumpolar distribution and visit sub-Antarctic islands to breed (September–November) and to moult their hair and skin (January to April). The southern elephant seal is the largest of all the animals in the seal family. In the fall … They don't have many predators, but they can defend themselves against the few they do have. The Northern Elephant Seal is smaller than those from the Southern part of the world.