Elephant seals undergo extraordinary physiological feats during breeding season, with the welfare costs of male competitive behavior and female nursing being substantial.
Elephant seal breeding involves extreme physiological challenges that constitute substantial welfare costs for individual animals. Bulls sustain visible, serious wounds during competitive battles that can become infected and debilitating. Nursing females lose body mass at an extraordinary rate while producing milk — a physiologically stressful process. Abrupt weaning leaves pups to face months of learning without food. These are natural processes to which elephant seals are adapted, but human additions — entanglement, vessel disturbance, beach disturbance — add unnecessary welfare burdens. The species' remarkable conservation recovery illustrates that protecting animals from human threats enables populations to manage natural welfare costs through evolutionary adaptation.