Why We Fight Part II: Pups with Crack Problems

“A pup fell into a crack!” Kirstie urgently called over the radio.  “I think we should try to save it,” a hint of nervous reluctance subtly colored her second transmission.  I looked up from the sled I had been lashing gear to and scanned the pressure ridges near the island until I spotted Kirstie in her ‘Big Red’ waving her arms.  She was 200 yards away standing within a maze of 4-5 foot high white jagged daggers of ice.  If the pup was where Kirstie stood I could understand her reluctance.  “Hell of a place to fall in pup,” I said under my breath knowing most likely that pup was in the water.  The ice we’re working on is sea ice and where that sea ice meets the land there is a mix of fast ice (ice fastened to the land) and normal sea ice which is still effected by tides and so moves up and down.  Where these two kinds of ice meet tidal cracks form.  Along with tidal cracks there are also pressure ridges or pressure cracks.  Pressure ridges are essentially the result of large plates of sea ice pushing against one another (much like the movement of earths tectonic plates) or up against the land shearing off huge blocks of ice and pushing up shark fin like projections.  This mixture of tidal and pressure cracks can create quite large and deep openings in the ice.  Our pup chose this area to have his emergency and unfortunately found a crack that sure enough was full of icy water.

 Kirstie in her "Big Red"

 My pal, Mr. Weddell helping me show you a tidal crack.  He's on the sea ice and across from him, that 3' high wall is fast ice.  Currently at low tide.

Now you may wonder, “What’s the big deal?  These are aquatic mammals!”  Yes it’s true that nearly 80% of a Weddell seals life is spent in the water and that usually by their third week of life they’ve even started to swim.  Despite both of those points, there are still a few problems with water for pups.  First, in their early weeks of life, they haven’t really built up enough fat layers to insulate them from the 28.5 degree water for long periods of time.  And secondly, and even more importantly, even seals need to learn how to swim and learn how to navigate the crack systems before they can explore under the ice without their moms.  This seal was at the most seven days old and probably had never before been in the water.  This little guy was no where near ready or capable of under ice swimming and if we didn’t do anything his death would be the only outcome of his fall.  As dire as that sounds, as ‘duh’ of a moment it seems that of course we must save this guy, truthfully, we wouldn’t normally intervene in such a situation.  It seems cruel and heartless but shockingly and painfully not getting involved is the right thing to do.  We are there to observe these animals.  We are not there to effect their lives in any way, be it for their benefit or detriment. 

It is heart wrenching when we walk through a seal colony and find an abandoned pup knowing it has only days to hours of life left.  One the other day nearly broke me.  I walked up to a very small pup and startled the little guy.  He tried to call out his surprise but his voice was so hoarse and dry from not feeding on his mothers milk that he couldn’t make a sound.  He just sort of wiggled and opened his mouth showing his pink gums.  Every fiber of my being burned with the need to help that creature but all I could do and what I did do, was close my eyes, let out a sorrowful sigh, wished him luck and walked away.  That is when this job can be hard.  Every day we literally walk among brand new delightful creatures that are so cute and beautiful and wonderful that I can’t help but congratulate the mammas and offering a few words of welcome to the new curious big-eyed little pups.  But we also see young mothers or inexperienced mothers who eventually abandon their pups or for some reason a pup dies but the mother won’t leave the pups body.  It’s these moments that one must protect themselves by putting on their ‘scientist hat’ and see the peacefully frozen dead pup as a statistic and not the joyous little bugger who made you smile and laugh when they gummed your leg as you tagged them the day before.  We are there to gather data not interfere with the natural course of things… no matter how horrible that natural course may be.  This is BS to a degree.  Just us being there effects them, alters their behavior, interrupts a pup while nursing, stresses the adults as we head bag and retag them… Our work forces us to directly interact with the animal however we try so incredible hard and I’d say do one hell of a job to insure those disturbances are small and fast and not long lasting.  But, yes… we are still effecting these animals, and in fact, in this instance of the pup in the crack, it was our very presence that spooked the little guy causing him to roll into a crack.  Its rescue therefore was our responsibility and ethically and scientifically very much appropriate.  This was a seal we didn’t have to watch die.  This was a seal we could help.  This was a seal we could save!

Pup's crack

The five of us working Tent Island converged on Kristie’s location to come up with a plan.  The pup was about 3-4 feet down a crack floating on slush and snow. The sides of the crack were way too high for it to ever get itself out and considering it still had no idea how to swim, if we didn’t get this animal out it would die.  We needed rope, a weigh bag (a specially designed bag we put pups in to weigh them.   Very scientific I know… by the way, pups 1-5 days old are usually 50-90lbs) and an ice axe or snow probe to more clearly expose the crack.  We needed to get the rope and bag under the animal.  That of course meant we had to get under the animal. Kaitlin and Jay (our project P.I. principle investigator, or person whose project this really is) sat on our legs as the three of us Kirstie, Terrill and myself wedged our arms and upper bodies into the crack.  It was insanely difficult. The pup was scared, peeing everywhere, slush, water and now pee-water was everywhere including in my mouth at one point… The crack was perhaps just over a foot wide so did not allow much room to maneuver the rope, pee-soaked bag and pup. We were doing everything we could to save this pup and the pup was doing everything it could to stay away from these crazy monkeys dressed in red and cursing at it. Several times we were able to get the rope under the pup and the pup on the bag, but it took nearly 45 minutes of wrestling a wet slippery and frightened 70 pound animal to eventually get it into the bag.  Finally we zipped the bag and hoisted the not so little guy out of there.  The pup flopped out of the bag.  He seemed a little confused but otherwise was fine if a little damp.  He let out a few ‘blah’ calls and began wriggling around the ice to find his mamma – we made sure to point him in the right direction.  The five of us simply stood around for a minute catching our breath and smiling a grateful smile.  

Ice Blocks at Tent Island

I felt proud of our group at that moment.  We were able to save this little guy and each of us did so without hesitating.  We all stepped in to the situation fully aware of the risks and how to safely mitigate them.  We worked as a team quickly, safely and efficiently and because of that we at least gave that pup a chance to participate in his still difficult and forthcoming fight for survival. 

Just another day….

 Seals, ice, Inaccessible Island, and Mt. Erebus.  For perspective, keep in mind most of those sausage looking things are 8 ft long and close to 1000lbs.

 The ice and seals around Tent Island

A few random pics of the past few days:

Mt. Erebus, crack and lenticular clouds on a particularly gorgeous day

Big Razor Back Island, seals and of course PENGUINS!!!

Kaitlin before entering an ice cave.  Very exciting!

 Another sneak peak of the upcoming ice cave post!

 Random visitor to our seal colonies.  This is a Crabeater seal, with a face only a blind mother could love.  They are mean, nasty things and guess what they don't eat?  Weirdly enough, they survive only on krill and have super awesome teeth shaped almost like tridents that help filter and snare the krill.  Weird animals and super excited I got to see one!!!