Kirstie, Katie, Michael and our F-Stp guide for the day during our first visit to Turks Head.
During the past several months of summer I’ve found myself
stuck in a strange transitional stage, preparing not for an upcoming winter
season but oddly enough for an extension of summer… well, an Antarctic frozen
summer of ice anyway. Antarctica
is a confusing place to prepare for.
24 hrs of light, summer with winter conditions, ice roads, penguins (no
polar bears! No matter what Gary Larson draws)
shipping container sleeping huts,
tagging and at times wrestling seals… it’s a strange place to pack for, train
for, mentally prepare oneself for… part of the fun I suppose.
So a valid question from a reasonably sane person would be,
“why the hell are you going down there?”
That’s a difficult question to answer to be honest, well perhaps the
philosophical and spiritual answers to it anyway… so how bout I skip those for
now… how bout instead I answer, what will my colleagues and I be doing while
we’re down there? Well, we are
here to study seals. No, not Seal
or Navy Seals or any other corny seal joke. We are studying Weddell seals and in so doing we are ensuring
the continuation of one of the longest infield studies of long-lived mammals to
date. The data gathered on these
amazing animals has been collected since 1968 and with such a long-lived
program the evolution of technologies, techniques and more importantly the
questions we are asking have resulted in substantial changes and
modifications. Despite these
variations it all has led to the building of an incredible database of
information painting an amazingly detailed, in many respects, but still
somewhat obscured picture of these beautiful animals. There is still plenty more to learn.
What to me is so incredibly fascinating about this study is
something that perhaps is not at first obvious when you hear of our
project. Yes the study’s name is Weddell
Seal Science. Yes, for two and
half months our lives revolve around nothing but Weddell seals. Yes we’re called the seal team, we get
to literally rub the bellies of seal pups for science!… The surprising thing is, seals are not
the true focus of the project. Really,
at its core, the questions we are attempting to answer are questions my good
friend and talented ecologist Michael Davis, calls the “holy grail of ecology:”
What regulates and influences how all populations grow and decline? What are the
rules that vertebrate populations dynamics are governed by? These questions do not simply need to
be aimed at seals but can be applied to all vertebrate species and the
longevity of this study, the shear mass of data already collected and the
tolerant temperment of the Weddell seal allowing for consistent continued
collection of data, makes the potential for answering these questions an
attainable goal. It is absolutely
thrilling to be apart of something so big and important to the world of ecology
all while getting to hang out with such damn cute, fuzzy, laughably smelly and
affable creatures, plus working with the seals… ha! See what my colleagues get
to be entertained by? Wonderfully
stupid and moronic researcher humor…
You can learn more about the project and not my poor humor at http://weddellsealscience.com/index.html
Kaitlin and Kirstie (left to right) prepping pup tagging equipment
Kaitlin, Terrill and Kirstie planning their approach to the mamma and pup.
Michael, Kirstie, Terrill and their helo pilot discussing their flight plan for a recon flight of our study area in order to assess sea ice conditions. We will all get to do one of these soon. Can't wait!!!
An adorable mom and very young pup. His or her umbilicus is still attached. Probably 3-4 days old at most. We try to get to the pups within the first 2-3 days of life to measure various birth conditions.
View of some of our study sites from right to left: North Base Colony (The northern side of the Erebus Glacial Tongue, the large glacier in the forefront of the picture), Turks Head (the rock face), Inaccessible Island in the distance and Little Razor Back Island.
Myself, Michael and Terrill finishing working a pup. The
bag is for weighing the pup also in theory keeps them calmer during the
workup... not always what happens in reality.
Sunset with blowing snow. Rare sight these days, the sun setting that is, not the blowing snow.
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