Marine Mammals Up Close
Today in San Francisco Bay I swam with a seal. My friend and I swim regularly in protected areas (because we don't have a paddler to escort us into the open bay), and until today the only wildlife we had seen were birds. We knew we were swimming where fish occurred, too, because many of the birds we usually see are fish-eating birds such as comorants and pelicans. And we knew that common seals (or harbor seals, Phoca vitulina), come into the bay, but we had never seen one even from a distance.
We had swum out about half a mile from our starting point, across a sort of big cove. We had stopped to reconnect, and were discussing whether or not to swim around the point forming the opposite side of the cove from where we had started, when my friend said "oh! a seal!" I turned around and there it was, about eight feet away, with its head above water looking me straight in the eyes.
Everyone I've known who has met seals swimming says that they are harmless. I know a few people who have met them and had the seals swim along with them, and now I am one of those people as well. We didn't swim towards the animal, because we didn't want to piss it off (and swimming toward it probably would have violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act's prohibition against harassing oceanic wildlife). We were also a little worried, just because we'd never met one close and we weren't sure how we might make it mad or what it would do if we did. A full-size harbor seal weighs about 300 pounds and is about six feet long, and is much more comfortable in the water than I am.
So we swam away, and when I looked over at my friend the seal was right behind her. For a while it swam kind of behind and next to her with its head out, as if she had taken her earless dog for a swim. She says it never touched her, and when we got back near the beach it didn't come out on shore with us.
While I waited for her to arrive, before we started swimming, I watched a group of crows harass a Cooper's hawk in the trees by the beach. The crows were sort of half-hearted about their mission; they'd let the hawk sit among them for a while and then one would jump up and take some lazy aerial swipes at the hawk until the hawk flew to a new perch nearby. They make a sort of bubbly version of their ordinary "caw! caw!" noise when they are flying aggressively at an intruder.
We had swum out about half a mile from our starting point, across a sort of big cove. We had stopped to reconnect, and were discussing whether or not to swim around the point forming the opposite side of the cove from where we had started, when my friend said "oh! a seal!" I turned around and there it was, about eight feet away, with its head above water looking me straight in the eyes.
Everyone I've known who has met seals swimming says that they are harmless. I know a few people who have met them and had the seals swim along with them, and now I am one of those people as well. We didn't swim towards the animal, because we didn't want to piss it off (and swimming toward it probably would have violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act's prohibition against harassing oceanic wildlife). We were also a little worried, just because we'd never met one close and we weren't sure how we might make it mad or what it would do if we did. A full-size harbor seal weighs about 300 pounds and is about six feet long, and is much more comfortable in the water than I am.
So we swam away, and when I looked over at my friend the seal was right behind her. For a while it swam kind of behind and next to her with its head out, as if she had taken her earless dog for a swim. She says it never touched her, and when we got back near the beach it didn't come out on shore with us.
While I waited for her to arrive, before we started swimming, I watched a group of crows harass a Cooper's hawk in the trees by the beach. The crows were sort of half-hearted about their mission; they'd let the hawk sit among them for a while and then one would jump up and take some lazy aerial swipes at the hawk until the hawk flew to a new perch nearby. They make a sort of bubbly version of their ordinary "caw! caw!" noise when they are flying aggressively at an intruder.
posted by ourswimmer at
4:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home