Does Elephant Eat Gannets?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 13, 30 October 1950, Page 3

Does Elephant Eat Gannets?

A message from Hastings poses the question: Does the three-ton sea elephant at present frequenting Cape Kidnappers subsist on a diet of gannets? The director of the Dominion Museum, Dr R. A. Fala, says it is unlikely. In the past month, says the Hastings report, the giant mammal has been frequently, observed basking on the shore. Visitors have come to regard him as being a particularly ill-tempered guardian of the cape. Flocks of gannets frequently rest on the surface of the sea near their colony. The theory has been advanced by local settlers that the sea elephant swims beneath them and pulls his victims under. Sea elephants normally live on a diet of crustaceans: sea leopards are known to be particularly partial to sea birds. Normally sea elephants are shy of human approach, and it is thought that the 18-foot specimen at Cape Kidnappers has good reason for lingering in the vicinity. Dr Falla said last night that there was a tendency for the larger sea elephants to come ashore at this time of the year, when they were overtaken by moult, so that they could roll about on a beach. Sea leopards, sea lions and fur seals ate sea birds, but the blunttoothed sea elephant was less likely than others .to do so. Its normal food was cuttlefish and squid. OVER weight? Try Bonkora. A product designed to counteract excess weight. Available F. G. Macklow. Chemist, Whakatane.