Hennessey Part 7: Seals Again

The clock of her hunger ticked as she loped the northward, feeling colder the farther she moved. But there was a plan in Hennessey’s actions. This was the northern-most point of her journey – the apogee of her annual trip. Here, a different type of seal - larger, slower, in colder water - hauled out near a broad, large lump of rocky land. A place she could hope to feed. Maybe the last chance before the pups inside her were damaged by hunger.

She approached this other rookery slowly, using all her senses to observe the sea bed shallowing, smell the oily foam of the seals, and hear their calls. This habitat was far larger than Seal Rocks – and hosted prey that were also far larger.

Arriving, she followed ancient protocol carved into her behavior, and circled to find whatever other sharks might be there. Swimming on the surface, she boldly announced her presence in the social space of this hunting ground. She had never been so brazen before. But she’d never been this big, and this hungry.

Immediately there was a second shark behind her. Bigger than she, it followed her every movement, each turn and diversion, as she swam towards the seal colony. It was a body length behind, then a half-length. When it nearly overtook her, and yawned its gaping mouth, she bolted.

She resumed circling, and a second huge animal headed directly toward her. As they came closer to one another the other shark sped up, on a collision course. It was powering toward her with a churning noise of thrashing water, not veering. At the very last instant, Hennessey dove: avoiding a crash of gristle and fins, avoiding a tangle of teeth.

All morning she swam the complex dance of dominance. She gave ground more often than not, but not always. Once, while she was near the bottom, a male dropped down towards her from the surface and sinuously swam just above her for ten long tail beats. She had seen this dance before, when she had sought the male she needed to fertilize her eggs. Now she was exhausted by hunger and motherhood and dismissed him with a curt flick of a fin.

Gaining confidence, she circled smoothly, trying not to let her hunger take control, trying not to let it overrule her predator’s caution. Off in the murky water around her, she saw more than one successful prey capture, the seal blood and the distant splashes lighting her senses on fire with the iron smell of mammal.

Suddenly, her chance came. A large seal careened foolishly towards her. It was no easy target, and it rocketed off in a new direction, streaking for the rocks. Rocks that were too far away, Hennessey knew! She flipped her great tail to hotly pursue it, dropped her depth and sped up to track it from below. There were no other competitors nearby. Her predator’s brain could calculate her best attack, and she slipped, with certainty, into perfect position.

The seal kept its pace, looked in all directions, speeding faster than an eyeblink for the rocks. This was an error. Because Hennessey could track it, cutting off a deep escape. The mother shark closed in from below, instinctively projecting the course of the seal. Doing the math faster in her primitive lobes than most humans could consciously calculate, she propelled herself to where the seal would be. She rose to meet it, jaws agape, rocketing up smoothly and confidently and perfectly to intersect the line of the fleeing mammal. This was her element, her time. Every muscle and sinew coordinated in this glorious upward surge. It was her straining willpower, projecting a mass of muscle and an armor of skin and a honed set of sharpened teeth on a flashing rise towards the surface.

In slow motion every movement came together, perfectly timed, perfectly positioned.

The seal was in mid-air, leaping toward safety as the shark rose from beneath. Lifting out of the water, Hennessey surged upward toward the top of the seal’s leap the same second the seal reached it. It was a magnificent, terrifying sight. She yawned her jaws and captured the seal perfectly across its girth. Despite its weight, her vast momentum carried her upward, wedging the seal tightly in her grasp. A perfect capture.

The signals of a worthy kill flooded her senses. She bit down with all her strength, fell back with a geyser of water, and dove. Two other sharks followed, sliding in to snap up anything they

could. She bit again and quickly swallowed, twisting at the last moment to regain possession of the rest of the body. Down near the bottom, she bit and swallowed once more, and fit this meal somehow into her body bulging with young.

She slowed and stopped, near the bottom, in a bubble of ocean water still tinted red with dissipating blood. She felt full, weighed down, successful, vindicated.

This was enough. This would feed her pups, and give her time to find the birthing place they needed. Amid the swirl of other sharks coming to inspect her kill, shooting through the scent of blood in the water, Hennessey idled, serene and sated.

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Start at the beginning of Hennessey's journey here.