Weddell Seal Science

A Very Busy Field Season!

Heading out each day from the remote field camp on the sea ice, Weddell seal team researchers have been extremely busy visiting the pupping colonies throughout the study area here in Erebus Bay.  New seal puppies are tagged, and some of them are weighed.  Then all are added to the extensive database of Weddell seals in the ongoing Weddell population and mass dynamics study.

Last season was a record year for number of pups born in the population study area with 610 Weddell pups added to the database.  While it's still far too early to determine if this will be another year of higher than average pup births in the area, it's definitely off to a great start with 327 pups tagged and added to the database so far this season!

- Mary Lynn

Happy Camper 2011

Weddell seal project field team members deploying to Antarctica for the first time are all required to complete a two day "Snow Craft I" course often referred to as "Happy Camper" school. 

This year our new field researchers Darren Roberts, Colleen Siudzinski, and Michael Yarnall all completed the Snow Craft course. Darren Roberts captures some of the team's field training experience in this short video edit of his Happy Camper GoPro camera imaging...

 - Mary Lynn Price

Our Sea Ice Camp Now In Place!

Our remote field camp on the sea ice of Erebus Bay is now in place, and the view is spectacular!  This season we're located near the Erebus Ice Tongue just off the route to Cape Evans.  Erebus Ice Tongue is a fascinating glacial formation that is very distinctive in satellite imaging of the Ross Island area where we're located.  The tongue is actually a long narrow sheet of ice formed where the end of the Erebus Glacier projects out into McMurdo Sound.

Perhaps the most dominating feature of the entire area here is Mount Erebus (12,448 ft.//3794 m), the southernmost active volcano on Earth, named by polar explorer James Clark Ross after one of his ships.  Mount Erebus was first climbed by members of Ernest Shackleton's party in 1908.

From our field camp's large kitchen hut window, we have a great view of Mount Erebus, Mount Terror (another smaller inactive volcano named for Ross's other ship), and Hutton Cliffs where one of the larger Weddell seal pupping colonies is located.

Below is a view of our field camp in place as the sun dipped near the horizon, with Mt. Erebus in the background.

The field team is now in full gear and the Weddell seal pupping season is getting underway.  We'll have more on our field team and their work in future posts, so please stay tuned!

- Mary Lynn Price

A Bit of Background on the Study

Preparations and training continue for our 2011 field season here in Antarctica.

As a bit of background on the project, this Weddell seal population study has been ongoing for well over 40 years, and has resulted in very long-term records that follow individual Weddells over their lifetimes. We have a new History section on our web portal about the long history of this project.

Here's a short video from our website multimedia section on studying Weddell seals…

The Weddell seal study database covers a time period for long-lived mammals that is unique in the scientific community.  Because of this, scientists are able to study factors influencing how the various population vital rates, such as reproduction and survival, are influenced by annual environmental changes, and how the yearly cohort into which a seal is born influences its long-term population contribution.

The scientists are also investigating how individual variation in Weddell seals interacts with environmental variability that gives rise to differences in individual fitness, and the effect this may have on the overall Weddell seal population.

- Mary Lynn Price

Antarctic Field Prep Continues

Deployment to Antarctica for research work through the U.S. Antarctic Program involves a number of unique travel aspects. Weddell seal research team members travel initially to Christchurch, New Zealand, where everyone on the field team is issued extreme cold weather (ECW) clothing.  From Christchurch, the field team then boards a C17 military transport aircraft operated by the U.S. Air Force for the flight to McMurdo Station.

Here at McMurdo, logistical preparations and specialized training for deployment into the field are continuing. Because the Weddell seal field research team will be working from a remote field camp on the sea ice, several specialized training courses are required, including a two day "Snow School" (genially referred to as "Happy Camper School") which provides vital information and skills training for working safely in the Antarctic field--or a one day refresher course for those who have recently completed the training--and a day long "Sea Ice Course."  Additional courses cover everything from snowmobile handling and light vehicle training to field communications.

The field team has a very busy week ahead!

- Mary Lynn Price

 

Field Team Now at McMurdo Station!

The main group of the 2011 Weddell seal research team is now at the U.S. Antarctic base, McMurdo Station, and is ramping up preparations for deployment into the field. "The next week or so will be full with training (Happy Camper training for the new crew members!), logistics, obtaining gear and supplies, and setting up field camp," notes field researcher Jesse DeVoe.

The field research team this season includes Principal Investigator Bob Garrott, Thierry Chambert, Jessica Farrer, Jesse DeVoe, Darren Roberts, Colleen Siudzinski, and Michael Yarnall.  I will be joining up with the team now in Antarctica in just a couple of days as field videographer.

Co-Principal Investigators for this Weddell seal research project are Bob Garrott and Jay Rotella, professors in the Ecology Department at Montana State University, and Don Siniff, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota.

Here's a short video introducing the beautiful Weddell seals that are the subject of this project. This video screened a few weeks ago as an Official Selection at the 2011 San Diego UnderSea Film Exhibition. Hope you enjoy the video!

- Mary Lynn Price

2011 Field Team Heads to the Ice!

The 2011 Weddell seal research field team is now heading to the Ice! 

Research field team members were issued their Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) clothing by the U.S. Antarctic Program, New Zealand at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) yesterday in beautiful Christchurch, New Zealand. This was in preparation for their flight to McMurdo Station today. 

This morning, Weddell seal team member Jesse DeVoe reports a "rainy day in Christchurch today as the crew awaits our 10am departure to the ice! Spirits are high! Hopefully the severe blizzards in McMurdo have cleared for our arrival!" 

A check of the McMurdo Station web cam shows the skies clearing for landing by the U.S. Air Force operated C-17 military transport on the Pegasus Ice Runway outside McMurdo.

You can keep up with the team via our Facebook and Twitter posts!

Below is a great satellite imaging flyover of the McMurdo Sound area where we're heading.  This satellite flyover also exlpores the Dry Valleys and glaciers beyond McMurdo Sound.

This beautiful satellite imaging flyover was created by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio; LIMA Data provided by: Patricia Vornberger (SAIC); LIMA data produced by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA.

- Mary Lynn Price