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Meet the Southern Elephant Seal: Impressive Antarctic Giants

Photo by Dave Merron, Quark Expeditions
Southern Elephant Seals, larger in size than their elephant seal cousins in the Northern Hemisphere, inhabit areas traveled by Quark Expeditions including the beautiful island of South Georgia. There, passengers bear witness to the incredible roaring of the adult males (bulls) on the beaches.

Photo by Dr. Sam Crimmin, Quark Expeditions
Elephant seals are so named partly thanks to the bulls' large proboscis, the trunk-like nose that also helps the animal reabsorb moisture from its exhaled breath. However, their massive size also lends to their name. Southern Elephant Seals are far larger than Northern Elephant Seals – bulls can reach up to 16 feet in length and weigh up to 6,600 lbs. The female of the species typically only reaches 1/6 the size of the male.
We asked Quark Expeditions onboard biologist Mikolaj Golachowski to share his experience with this majestic creature. After studying biology at the University of Warsaw, Golachowski continued his research in ecology and the behavior of carnivores. After earning his PhD in 2002, he went on his first Antarctic expedition for one year while working with the Department of Antarctic Biology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
It was during this time, he says, that he became "completely hooked on this frozen paradise." Golachowski returned to Antarctica for three additional scientific expeditions, finally returning from one in 2006 on board an expedition ship, where he was introduced to marine biology lecturing and guiding in Antarctic tourism. A year later, he did the same in the Arctic.
Golachowski has spent as much time in the polar regions as at home over the last twelve years and now works as a writer and translator, as well as giving presentations about the polar regions, when not actually traveling about in them.
Meet the Southern Elephant Seal, as introduced by a man who has spent a good portion of his life studying them.

Studying Elephant Seals on the Seventh Continent

"I went to Antarctica to study the population genetics and behavioural ecology of elephant seals. In fact, I was mainly interested in their sex lives, as it is one of the most dramatic on Earth," Golachowski says.
"The big male has to fight other males for the access to females, who are much smaller, weighing 'only' up to 800 kg," he explains, noting that if the male elephant seal is successful, his harem may contain up to a hundred females!

Photo by Dr. Sam Crimmin, Quark Expeditions
"As the male/female ratio in the population is more or less 1:1, that means there are loads of males who don’t have a girlfriend and they really want one," he explains. "I suppose the downside of success is that if you are successful, you get to spend a whole month just tending to your girls and fighting your opponents, without any time to eat or sleep. After such a month of sex & violence, males are so exhausted that they often die (but hey, what a way to go!)."
Part of Golachowski's research required that he collect samples from the seals. The pups were easy enough to work with, he says. "They actually seemed to enjoy it. For the samples, I used a metal brush on a stick to collect some hairs from moulting individuals; I imagine it’s quite itchy to moult so the kids actually loved a bit of a scratch."
However, it becomes increasingly difficult with females and quite ridiculous with the big males. "Fortunately, quite often they are asleep. But when they aren't… their eyes are great under water, not so much above it. When they see me walking towards them, they see a shape under two metres tall, which is as high as the males lift their head when they want to fight," Golachowski says.
Clearly, he would lose a fight with a bull elephant seal. He could crawl on the ground, but might then be mistaken for the smaller female!
"In this context, given the alternative of making love or war, I always chose war," Golachowski says. "I always approached the big males as straight up and tall as I could, to avoid any confusion. I would rather die in a battle!

10 Ways to avoid car accident

·         Be mindful of approaching emergency vehicles and give way to them if you see their emergency lights flashing and/or hear their siren sounding. Remember that emergency vehicles sometimes have to drive through red lights or against the normal direction of traffic!

·         Use the signal lights before you change lanes. When you use the signal lights, you are also warning everyone that you want to change your lanes. They will slow down or stop the car until you pass the road.

·         Follow the laws. Most people have an accident because they didn’t follow the laws. Speeding and drunk driving are the top two dangerous things in the world.

·         Keep a safe distance. When you push the brake, it takes a few seconds to stop the car because of the time it takes to react, think, and push the brake. The safe distance depends on the speed. When you push the brake, you also can slide a little bit distance so we must keep a safe distance. More fast, more distant.

·         Plan your driving, for example you may choose to take a longer route but one with less traffic or is technically easier to go.

·         Keep your vehicle slower than the speed limits at turns or steep roads. You never know what is going to come from the other side.

Mysterious Fire Razes 164 House In Bauchi

The Kwara State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mary Wakawa, who confirmed the tragedy, said fourteen passengers were burnt beyond recognition, while 14 others sustained various degrees of injuries.
“One of the heavy duty vehicles veered off its lane and collided with the other. Both vehicles went up in flame, 13 died on the spot, while one later died in the hospital. We rushed 14 injured passengers with severe burns to University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH). Already, with the support of the Kwara State Transport Management Agency (KWTMA), we had evacuated the wreckage,” Wakawa said.
The FRSC sector commander, who went ahead to warn road users against over speeding, night driving and driving when exhausted, revealed that 13 burnt corpses of the victims were instantly given mass burial.

Wakawa blamed the crash on exhaustion on the part of the driver, and warned drivers to stop long driving overnight insisting that they need rest to avoid human errors on the roads.
Speaking on this year’s edition of ‘Road Traffic Crash Victims Remembrance Week’ in Ilorin, she hinted that the figure of road traffic accident in the country remains high, adding that 160 to 10,000 accidents are still recorded and further revealed that the speed control mechanism already prepared to regulate speed on the nation’s road would soon be in operational.
The FRSC boss said Rescue Officers have been trained by the commission and attached to transport organisations with fleet of vehicles in the country, in order to create more rescuing methods during road traffic accidents on the high way.
She also stated that FRSC has infiltrated renowned registered driving schools in the state with proper driving teaching aids in other to enhance the production of quality drivers for Nigeria.
Wakawa, while reacting to the recent killing of two FRSC personnel in the state, she said: “right now some of our officers are undergoing training on how to handle arms. The new corps marshal has taken the bull by the horn on this issue.

Fourteen people reportedly lost their lives on Wednesday when a fully loaded tanker and a truck collided on the Ogbomoso-Jebba Express Road, Ilorin axis.

The accident occurred when a truck said to be fully loaded with cattle and passengers allegedly coming from one of the northern states collided with a fuel laden tank coming from the opposite direction, ThisDay reports.

Couple crushed to death by a drunken driver

Couples were crushed to death by an alleged drunken driver in Ode Irele, Irele Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The car rammed into the couple, three of their grandchildren and an old woman while they were standing in front of their house located at Gbaleju area, killing the couple and inflicting various degrees of injury on the children and the old woman.