Right? Hello? Buhler?

A report published last month in the journal Marine Mammal Science relates what scientists, specifically wildlife biologists and seal specialists, had never observed before, or even thought possible. In January of 2022, a male elephant seal, all two tons of him, galumphed into the surf to rescue a seal pup from drowning. “The rising tide had pulled the pup out to sea and, too young to swim, it was struggling to stay afloat. The [pup’s mother] was still on the beach, answering the pup’s plaintive cries with calls of her own, which attracted the attention of a nearby male….he gave the female a sniff and then ‘charged out into the surf’…When he reached the pup, he used his body to gently nudge it back to the beach — probably saving its life.”

Elephant seals have never been noted for altruistic behavior. The males fast during the breeding season (roughly December to March, and this occurred in January), and are programmed to conserve energy for mating and fighting rivals. The lifeguard elephant seal abandoned his harem of females and expending valuable energy, both seemingly against his own interests. It had risked his own well-being for another, unrelated individual.

Sarah Allen, a wildlife biologist at the National Park Service who witnessed the rescue at the Point Reyes National Seashore about 30 miles northwest of San Francisco, says that neither she nor her colleagues had ever seen anything like it. “It’s completely out of the ordinary,” Matthew Lau, another biologist who witnessed the event said. “[The male] was so determined and directional in going out there, and so fast,” Allen added. “And then coming back in, he was so gentle.”

The guess is that this was a unique, outlier episode, but you never know. The two scientists who witnessed the rescue now have doubts about their previous assumptions. “Elephant seals are complicated,” Dr. Allen says. “We only see a small fraction of their life.” Her colleague Dr. Costa, like everyone in his field, had previously thought elephant seals were not as intelligent or as capable of non-conforming, improvised behavior as sea lions. Now he’s not so sure. “Maybe there’s more going on up there than I thought,” he told the New York Times.

There may be hope for Joe Biden after all.

Note: WordPress’s bot thinks I should tag this post “photography.”