pictures don't do him justice

So yesterday, on my last of three seal days in a row, I did get a chance to return to the green elephant seal with my camera in hand. Looks like he'll be sticking around and molting (a process that takes a couple weeks) and so the people of Avila will have to learn to live with him. This photo, disappointingly, doesn't quite capture his amazing greenness. I could have pumped it up in Photoshop but then that would be cheating, wouldn't it? (Not that I'm above cheating, mind you. I'm all for it in board games and team sports though I think it's all wrong in relationships and risky in taxes.)

Perhaps a close up does a better job? In any case, at least there you can see the barnacles he's collected. And you can see the patchiness of his soon to be molted fur. Anyway, he was the closest thing I got to seal action yesterday. I hung signs at a popular harbor seal haul out and followed up on a couple of long shots (taking long walks on empty beaches), but that was it.

Of course the animal that was on my mind most was Thornberry, my first fur seal pup from last year, as he was being released at the Farallone Islands yesterday. Did I ever mention that he turned out to be a hybrid (half fur seal, half sea lion)? Pretty exciting to me, anyway. Looking back, I do recall noticing that my second and third fur seals looked distinctly different from my first, but I had no idea it was all about the DNA.

So as a refresher, here's Thornberry (on the left, half sea lion) and Cranny (below, all fur seal). I see it in their profiles, their coloration, and even the shape of Thornberry's body. Their differences are also likely to be more than skin deep. The sea lion in Thornberry will make him thigmotactic (liking to cuddle), but the fur seals around him aren't into that sort of thing.

After whistfully imaging my baby's first day back in the big ocean, I learned this morning that I get to go on the last of three fur seal releases. On April 28th I will discover if I suffer from motion sickness while traversing shark infested waters. Even if I weren't familiar with its ominous nickname (the Red Triangle), we TMMC volunteers have had first hand confirmation about the sharks there. During one ill-fated release a couple of years ago, volunteers saw Swissy meet her untimely demise at the water's surface. Very very ugly for all involved. I do think someone got pictures of the event, though you can imagine we're in no hurry to publicize them. Ever since, we don't go to the Farralones during peak shark season (August). Still, it's a valuable release spot for animals who are likely to be habituated to humans. After spending most of five months in rehab (basically the whole of their lives), these fur seals need a little distance from our world. Anyway, I'm not going to let a little vomit and predation keep me from having a good time. It's never stopped me before...