Do big males fight to the death?
Rarely. As beach dominance is established in December and during the breeding season in February, bulls often battle each other. These confrontations are often bloody but rarely result in serious injury. The neck and chest area of a large bull is protected by a calloused shield and a thick layer of blubber. Fights can last from just a few minutes to half an hour, depending upon how evenly matched the bulls are. On occasion, a broken jaw or blinded eye from such fights may eventually lead to death because they would impair foraging. Almost all mortality occurs at sea. The younger males, often seen sparring either on the beach or in the shallow waters off shore, are learning how to fight but for them, as for other young male mammals, this is playing rather than fighting and animals are very seldom injured in this activity.
