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salute was led by Michael McGolthlin, a visiting Rotarian from the Sebastopol Sunrise club.
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Harry Polley introduced former Sebastopol Rotarian Craig Campbell and Barbara Beeden introduced the day’s presenter, Dr. Bob Rubin.
Lambert brought along Dan Howard, from Point Reyes and the Cordell Bank Sanctuary (a fitting companion, given the day’s program speaker).
Past Presidents-January 16-’Special Meeting’
The photos tell it all. The Blounts (Patti, John and the four-pawed Huxley) regaled in Tahoe, surrounded by snow piles. Quite a sight to see, except Huxley hogged much of the picture.
Barbara Beedon introduced Dr. Bob Rubin, moving on from his previous hit --highlighting manta rays --to a different fascinating creature, the elephant seal.
The SRJC professor is hardly a ‘lecturer’, known for his up close-and-personal connections with sea creatures. His earlier encounters with super-intelligent rays were stunning. But today we found out that it is good -maybe more so -- to be a male elephant seal. Well, if one can live with such a big proboscis/snout.
Maybe not the swiftest of beasts, especially on land, these seal elephants pack some serious poundage. Males can be 18 feet in length and weigh up to 4,000 pounds. Their female counterparts average about 12 feet and tip the scales at a mere 1,500 pounds.
The females give birth to one pup a year --an 11-month pregnancy, with one month to prepare to send her offspring out on its own.
Just over 100 years ago elephant seals were seriously endangered, valued for their ‘oil’ commodity. Their numbers were down to a mere 100. Today, it’s estimated to be a population of 175,000.
Dr. Rubin highlighted two ‘shots’ of elephant seals. The first showed two males ‘battling’ it out, trading bloody proboscis shots while nine-feet in the air. In reality, these fights seldom resulted in serious injury, thanks to all that padding. The two combatants are much like sumo wrestlers --and may the best bumper claim the prize. Since these were mostly duels over female elephant seals, one might think that it’s good to be the male.
However, the professor showed another pic where a male elephant seal had his own harem (and island to go with it) that seemed to attract about 500 females (but who’s counting?)
As for the females, each elephant seal has an 11-month pregnancy, then one month to prepare the puppy for life on its own. To do so, the female gives up 40% of its body weight. As for the pup, it goes from 40 pounds in weight to 500 big ones in just 25 days.
But this is all a lead-in to Dr. Rubin’s most telling discoveries (besides a cast of dare-devil college students eager to…well, never mind.) Elephant seals spend only 10% of their time on land. The rest is spent migrating and diving --and diving to depths from 900 to 7,000 feet. How do these marine mammals hold their breath for such descents? No problem --they can go a couple of hours between breaths.
OK, how can one top this (well, remember Barbara Beedon’s TedEx speaker and the whale book a few months ago?) How about two 6th graders writing a book about gopher sharks in Sebastopol? It could happen! [For the zoologically challenged, gopher sharks are a Harry Simms invention –Ed.]
