The season of my favorite pinnipeds has started! I had the extraordinary opportunity to join marine mammalogist, Sarah Codde, on count surveys this month for elephant seals. We counted pups, yearling weaned pups, cows (females), and bulls (males) all along a 2-mile beach stretch and from above using a scope! These amazing mammals are known to take 2 hour micro-naps broken into segments during their time out at sea and have a unique understudied dietary ecology. Females are known to consume lantern fish and squid which are both deep sea pelagic prey but in males, their diet is unknown! Females produce rich fatty milk for their pups as they only give birth to one offspring, but at times mothers might abandon pups creating competition when older pups latch onto other mothers stealing milk in the absence of their own. Cows were more alert when we would walk by them and their talkative pups, while bulls doze off unless approached by a rival.