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The males start play-fighting each other when they're weaners. The fights for serious dominance, however, don't start until the male reaches puberty. Then, fighting between males will take place for territorial rights, mating rights, and higher standing in the male hierarchy.
The fights seem to largely take place on shore or in the shallows where they can use their back flippers to help rear up their enormous bodies to intimidating heights. Despite the stiff competition amongst males, the fights usually only last a few minutes and end with one of the males backing off. Although blood may be drawn, they do not usually inflict lasting or serious damage on each other.
Oh, what a sight to behold ! When two huge adult male elephant seals have a difference of opinion, the ensuing scene looks like the clash of the Titans.
( Click any photo to enlarge )
Each year during the month of December, the alpha males at the top of the hierarchy usually establish themselves on ' their ' beach ', or, in the case of a large beach, on ' their section ' of that beach.
Then a consortium of younger males ' approved ' by each alpha male will patrol the shallow waters just offshore in an effort to rebuff any attempt by an upstart male from coming up onto the ' taken ' beach. ( Of course, several times a day, a brash younger male will try to ' sneak ' past the guards and attempt to displace the established alpha male. )
After trying to ward off an intruder by blowing bubbles with their proboscises, the guards will roar loudly and swim toward the intruder trying to head him off by making physically threatening moves such as forward-lunging in the water and/or biting whatever body-part is in range. If, however, the intruder gets by the guards, it'll be up to the alpha male to defend his territory.
The defending male will employ a few different tactics to dissuade any interlopers.
First, there's the raising of the head and the ensuing ' look '.
If that doesn't cause the intruder to back down, then the defending male will emit defeaning roars, known as threat-claps.
If the challenger still doesn't back off, then the defending male will raise his huge torso and make a series of threatening forward lunges in the direction of the challenger.
At that point, even though there may be several yards between them, the challenger often backs away and either moves further down the beach or has to run the gauntlet of getting by the guards patrolling the water. ( Either way, the challenger will most likely be back a little later on to try his luck again.)
If the intruder refuses to back down, then the defending male will lunge across the separating area and a fight will start with both males going after each other's neck using their large canine teeth to inflict damage.
Since they're both extremely heavy, they also lean on each other, much like human heavy-weight boxers do to tire out and wear down their opponent.
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