i’ve written about elephant seals a total of 3 times here and it must have had some bloody mary effect cause there is one terrorizing local beaches right now. a really psycho, sexually frustrated 2,500-pound one.

Sorenson says that soon after the bull first appeared, he tried unsuccessfully to mate with the (much smaller) female harbor seals. Then, last year, after trying again to mate, he turned violent and began to kill. This year, he is staying around well past his usual departure date at the end of March, and now has started to consume his kills.

“This bull does straight-out murder,” said Keary Sorenson of Sebastopol, a former surfer who volunteers for government and nonprofit agencies in Sonoma County. “A week ago, I saw him chase down a female harbor seal, use chest blows to crush her, then bare his upper canine teeth and drive them down onto her head and back.”

“Nibbles” has killed a dozen seals and flew out of the ocean without warning to attack a pit bull. seriously…pit bull vs elephant seal, did that really happen?

“I saw the elephant seal come out of the water like a torpedo, angle down on the dog and land on him,” said Lowrey. “Somehow the dog wriggled out and turned and squared off with the seal.”

Erinn Flaherty, the dog’s owner, said Garcia told her Sativa barked defiantly at the seal while Garcia hurled the stick at him. Garcia then escaped with the dog, which suffered a puncture wound the diameter of a quarter in one thigh.

i can’t believe this made the front page of the chronicle today. i mean yeah it’s my kinda story and whatnot, but still. i was up in sebastopol/sonoma just two weeks ago. how awesome would it be if i could have photographed a real elephant seal? pretty awesome. not so awesome if i’d get killed though.