Jane Stevens at Año Nuevo State Reserve, CA. -- Elephant seal males began surfacing like gigantic biosubs in the waves along Año Nuevo State Reserve in early December. Then the females began arriving, and the first pup was born December 16. It's the big migration season of the northern elephant seal. For about the last six months, they've been living in the far reaches of the North Pacific Ocean. The males swam along the graceful curve of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, out along the edges of the giant eddies that swirl across the planet's watery face. The edges are the best. That's where all the food web action is: nutrients upwelling, providing food for tiny plankton that are eaten by zooplankton that are eaten by krill that are eaten by little fish that are eaten by.....you get the picture.

Male elephant seals feast on squid, rays, rat fish, sharks and skates during their deep-diving yo-yo lives: Surface for a few minutes to take a breath, exhale, then dive for 20 or 30 minutes, grab some food, do a U-turn, and head for the top. Up and down. Up and down. Putting on hundreds of pounds, to emerge from the surf and undulate onto the sands of Año Nuevo, ready for bear. Driven by hormones, each two-ton, 15-foot long alpha male claims his piece of beach and the females who take up residence. Then he spends the next three months, day and night, no food, no water, chasing off males trying to sneak in for a quick coupling, passing on his genes to the next generation, and engaging in bloody battles with others that think they're up to taking the place of the Big Guy. Like this duo we saw last week. Oh. Nobody died.