A week later, beachgoers in Victoria, British Columbia, spotted an elephant seal in the ocean. Morgan Van Kirk, a fisheries officer with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, wonders how Emerson was able to glide back so quickly.
he was wrong. Emerson would swim about 20 miles a day to get back to his favorite beach.
“He has clearly made it clear that he wants to live in the Victoria area,” Van Kirk, who works for the agency, which is part of the Canadian government, told the Washington Post.
Emerson was born in Washington state in January 2022 and has since become a rising star with visitors and volunteers at the state park where he lived. His mother, Elsie May, was already well known for not caring when people were at her house. The state park approached her.
Park officials relocated Emerson in April 2022 to protect him from human fans until he can return to the water. A spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which helped transport Emerson, declined to tell the Skagit Valley Herald the seal pup’s new location.
However, Emerson returned to the public eye after being spotted on a beach in Victoria in the spring of 2023. He was moulting, the grueling process in which a seal sheds its fur and underlying skin.
Van Kirk said Emerson was wandering the streets and sidewalks, and wildlife officers had to direct traffic around him and tape off the area where Emerson was lying. Van Kirk said he was moved to two other beaches but always returned to Victoria.
After police drove Emerson 420 miles to Tharsis, B.C., in September, he disappeared for a while. Officials thought they may have seen the last of him.
But on April 1, Emerson was discovered in a public park in Victoria, and wildlife officials cordoned off the area with tape and posted signs urging people to stay away. He returned to land to molt.
Emerson lay in the middle of a public sidewalk, attracting more attention than ever before. As he moved, Fisheries and Oceans Canada volunteers followed him and cordoned off the area with tape. However, as people continued to approach him, authorities decided to relocate him again.
On April 5, more than 100 people watched as five police officers tried to herd Emerson into the back of a van to take him to a private beach on Vancouver Island.But the seal pup must have Van Kirk said he recognized the van from the previous year after resisting it for nearly five hours. Only after officers brought in another vehicle did he begin to move.
When the elephant seal was spotted off the coast of Victoria a week later, Van Kirk said she couldn’t believe it: Emerson had returned. Elephant seals can run on just two hours of sleep, but Van Kirk was surprised that Emerson swam so fast while shedding his skin.
Since its recent resurfacing, this pup has only become more popular. Volunteers from Fisheries and Oceans Canada keep an eye on him and tape off the area to prevent people from getting close to him.
Roxanne Bertrand, a professor of ecology and biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said many elephant seals begin molting around April and then move to a more comfortable habitat, usually their natal home. She said it’s still a mystery how elephant seals know how to get back there.
“About something [Emerson’s] “His past experiences have influenced his decision to stay, whether it’s the amount of space or the amount of food, he seems to have found a place he likes,” Beltran said.
Van Kirk said wildlife officials would only relocate Emerson again if people harassed him. Elephant seals can carry infectious diseases and can weigh more than 4,000 pounds when fully grown, so getting close to Emerson is a safety risk, he said.
Emerson is expected to shed his skin within the next few weeks, and Van Kirk is optimistic he will return after that. To the sea.
“We all love him, but I hope we never see him again,” Van Kirk said.
