Hennessey Part 3: Seal Rocks

Hennessey patrolled ahead, instinctively following the ocean road in her memory. Her electric sense knew the rocky paths and the smooth sand below. It knew the volcanic cracks and hidden valleys where the base of the ocean bunched up to form rocky outcrops. She knew the mouth of the bay because of its taste, and could hear the tumult of the crowded, boisterous, vacation beach at the bay’s northern point. Her memory said if she followed this path, she was close to a wellspring of food.

She moved quickly past the bay and the beach towards the sights and smells of rocks and seaweed that lay just to the north. Just offshore, in water only three or four body lengths deep, a stone semicircle brooded over a tiny pocket of glorious prey. The air was full of raucous barks, the smell of fur and pups, the smell of seals. They were small, but their presence and promise peppered the water.

As the morning brightened, sunlight slitted her eyes, and allowed her to see the churn of possible prey. She circled the rocks, close enough to observe the seals with all her senses, but far enough away not to spark panic. Satisfied with the possibilities, she approached slowly, watching. A flash to her right pulled her attention, a combination of sight and sound and electric current that shouted ‘mammal’. A seal scampered in the lee of the rocks, oblivious of the looming danger.

With instinctive speed, Hennessey twisted herself into pursuit. Reacting instantly, the seal leapt away at high velocity, frightened, churning toward the nearby rocks. Correcting sharply to her right, Hennessey wheeled, accelerating with her full power. An apex hunter’s total mastery of her trade.

She strained and sped up and closed in. But the agile seal could turn and twist as fast as the shark could follow. It was harder now, harder for Hennessey to pivot and accelerate, with the large girth of her pups and their pulsing, wriggling weight. She usually massed a full ton of muscle and blood and brain and teeth. But her pups added another quarter ton – held tensely in her uterus full to bursting. The pups got in her way when she needed agility.

The pair shot through the cold green gloom, from undersea canyon to waving forests of kelp. The chase lengthened as the seal porpoised out of the water for frantic speed. Each massive stroke of the shark’s scimitar tail and her massive envelope of muscle tensed and twisted and pushed in coordinated power to send her closer to the fleeing seal. She strained and pushed herself and closed in, eyes rolled up, mouth beginning to open, teeth pivoting out as if to jump the last few inches towards her prey.

Then from the shallows came hurtling two new grey torpedoes, two smaller sharks of her kind, carelessly barreling in between her and the prey. The juvenile amateurs flailed and spun and snapped at the seal, ruining Hennessey’s attack. All the mother shark could do was to twist uselessly to lunge at her prey as it miraculously shot into the safety of the shallows.

As fast as she had accelerated, she slowed and threw herself at the small sharks, which scattered into the murky water. Spinning away, Hennessey turned violently downward, and lunged toward deeper depths. She had competition for these seals, from a dense collection of immature and inexperienced sharks. Interference!

And for what? These seals were too small for all this trouble. Each was barely a morsel for her hunger, barely the size of two of her pups. Barely enough to make up for the effort in catching them. They were the natural prey of smaller sharks.

The inexperience and interference of her small brethren changed the decisions in her predator’s brain. The youngsters could have them. She needed more.

So, hungrier than ever, she left the rocks, spiraling out and around them in an uncertain search for the next target. Her memory had been right - there were seals here. But her new bulk and the undisciplined gangs of juveniles just learning to hunt, made Seal Rocks an impossible target.

Back on the hunt, what immediately intruded on her senses were novel sounds and smells. The nearby beach. It had none of the comfortable signals of her well-known seal prey. But it also just wasn’t the same empty ocean she’d moved through during the weeks of her northward trek. The nearby beach held different signals of possible food. She turned toward it. The distance was tiny as the ocean was measured - and the payoff might be worth it.

Start at the beginning of Hennessey's journey here.