A blog about some of the Antarctica Weddell seal population study field research work and outreach efforts during the Weddell seal pupping season in the Erebus Bay region of Antarctica's Ross Sea. Weddell seal images and recordings obtained under NMFS Permit Nos. 1032-1917, 17236, and 21158. More information at http://WeddellSealScience.com
Field work has begun! Monday was our first day in the field, and we did what’s called a “shakedown”, which is basically a shorter day where we test out our gear in the elements. This includes making sure we have the right layering system for snowmobile rides, ensuring the proper equipment gets placed on the snowmobiles, and orienting ourselves with the geographic landmarks. It was a gorgeous, calm day, about 7 degrees Fahrenheit without a cloud in the sky, and we all thoroughly enjoyed being out in the field.
First Weddell seal pup recorded for the 2021 pupping season, as mom looks on. Photo by Parker Levinson.
On Tuesday, we tagged our first pup of the 2021 season! He was born at Big Razorback island to an 8 year old mom. It’s still a little early for pups, so he was our only pup for the day, but it was really nice to see our first pup. The carpenters also brought out and secured our emergency shelter and fuel cache to Big Razorback. The shelter is a hard-sided, red dome known as an apple. Because we won’t have a camp in the field this year, we’ll have an apple in two different locations so that we have a place to get out of the elements and warm up if necessary.
One of the team's two hard-shelled "Apples" which serve as a warming station and shelter if needed in the field. Photo by Parker Levinson.
Today was another productive day in the field! We made substantial progress on our road system. These flagged routes are in place to keep us safe in case weather conditions change while we are in the field and we have to navigate back to our emergency shelters or to McMurdo station. In order to make roads, we drill into the sea ice to place a bamboo flag as a marker. We put these flags at 50 meter intervals and continue in a straight line to wherever our destination may be. Occasionally, we’ll have to cross a sea ice crack, which we first profile by measuring the width and ice thickness to ensure it is crossable.
Using a hand drill to profile a sea ice crack as part of flagging safe routes about the study area sea ice. Photo by Parker Levinson.
Each of us goes through a full day of training on how to safely work on the sea ice where we learn how to profile these cracks. In terms of seals, there was one more pup today. This male was born to an untagged mother. We tagged the mother today, so although we don’t know her age, we’ll have a record of any pups she has in future seasons.
The season is off to a great start so far, and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Special Report From Antarctica Field Team Leader, Parker Levinson:
Exciting news, after 23 days in managed isolation, we have made it to Antarctica!
Field Team Member Evan Shields walks off the Boeing 757 and takes his first steps in Antarctica. Photo by Parker Levinson.
While it’s always a challenge getting to Antarctica, COVID-19 has made it much more difficult. Monumental precautions are being taken to ensure that COVID-19 doesn’t reach Antarctica. As such, each person traveling from the United States to McMurdo Station must complete a rigorous isolation process. We first all flew to San Francisco where we got tested for COVID-19 and remained isolated in our individual hotel rooms for five days until our charter flight to Christchurch, New Zealand. In NZ, we entered managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities run by the government. MIQ basically just means we are required to stay isolated in our individual hotel rooms for 14 days. Anytime you open your door or go outside, you must wear a mask. We get meals delivered outside our rooms three times a day and have frequent COVID-19 tests.
The folks coordinating MIQ made sure we had enjoyable and productive stays. We completed many trainings for the season like proper Antarctic waste disposal and Antarctic Field Safety. We had the chance to get outside for some daily fresh air and some socially-distanced, masked walking with other folks going down to the Ice. We’ve found creative ways of remaining active in our hotel rooms. (Did you know that pushing your bed on a roller frame is a great cardio workout?) There were even virtual science lectures about the science being conducted this season. Here’s how we stayed busy over the past couple weeks:
Victor Villalobos: I spent some of my time reading [science] papers, catching up on rest (while we have it), learning some R*, and going over the study area map and various ice/crack/pup tagging scenarios. On a positive note, I also got some outdoor time, exercise (in my room), and I developed a paper bag bowling game in my spare, spare, time. Since we got food deliveries three times a day, these paper bags can really add up.
Paper Bag Bowling During Managed Isolation and Quarantine. Concept, Design and Video by Victor Villalobos.
Evan Shields: I spent pretty much all of my time in MIQ relaxing in one way or another. After finishing up with graduate school just a few short weeks prior to flying into San Francisco, I was ready to decompress and catch up on some relaxation. I made a lot of video and phone calls to family and friends, watched a handful of TV shows and movies, and tried to spend 45 minutes to an hour each day outside. I also spent quite a bit of time reading and finished a couple of science-fiction classics I had been wanting to read for quite some time. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food has been and, although I actually enjoy cooking when I'm at home, I thoroughly enjoyed having meals delivered to my door.
Evan's First Seal: On the way to the McMurdo Station ice airfield, Evan takes a photo of his first Weddell Seal. Photo by Parker Levinson.
Parker Levinson: I spent much of MIQ catching up on sleeping, striving to get 8.5 hours a night with the frequent afternoon nap. I also caught up on some academic literature and took a couple R coding courses*. I tried to get 10,000 steps a day, which was facilitated by only talking on the phone with friends and family if I was also pacing my room.
After completing MIQ, we moved to a different hotel where we remained masked and socially distanced until our flight to McMurdo. There were a couple of weather delays, but the day before yesterday we arrived at McMurdo Station on a Boeing 757, which allowed for some stunning views of the continent. As nice as it was to have unlimited relaxation and reading time, we’re very much looking forward to starting our field season.
The team outside Building 155 (the main building on McMurdo Station) after completing their GPS training. Masks and social distance are currently required on station. Photo by Parker Levinson.
We are so very appreciative of everything that is being done to keep us happy and healthy this season. We are aware of the monumental effort being made by the individuals from the U.S. Antarctic Program, New Zealand Defense Force, and hotels in order to get us down to Antarctica as safely and comfortably as possible. To that end, we want to express our deepest gratitude to the New Zealand government and United States Antarctic Program for making this season possible.
Special Report From Lead Project Scientist, Dr. Jay Rotella:
We are fortunate to be able to field a research team this season. Because of logistics limitations and challenges, we will be able to have a team of 3 rather than 6 on the ice from mid-October until approximately mid-December. Also, the team will work from McMurdo Station rather than from a field camp out on the sea ice. Despite the challenges, our team will be able to make progress on the core objectives of our project.
In particular, the team will be able to maintain the long-term database, which is, of course, valuable in its own right and quite critical to our current project. Over the last decade, we have collected data on body mass and maternal features for a large sample of pups. Our current project is focused on determining which of those pups have (a) survived, (b) become mothers, (c) reproduced the most and (d) evaluating how those outcomes relate to features of the pup’s mother, her maternal investment in the pup, and the environmental conditions the pup has experienced.
Our team of 3 will be able to identify all mothers and associate all pups with their mothers. This will be very valuable for keeping the data on individual reproductive histories intact, and for identifying which of the pups we worked on in past years have become mothers (a core objective of our current grant).
The team will also conduct our surveys of the population and collect data that are crucial to knowing the population’s size and to gaining information on survival of males and females that were observed in previous years of the study. The team will conduct fewer surveys than is typical and conduct surveys over the course of 2-3 days rather than in a single day. The team also plans to survey the more remote colony of seals at White Island at least once, which we do every year with helicopter support, to maintain the database on White Island seals. We are really pleased to be able to continue the project, and look forward to what we can learn this year.
For viewers new to this project, some quick Weddell seal info might be helpful. Weddell seals are true seals, and live their entire lives in Antarctica. They can be found all around the Antarctic continent. Weddell pups are born on top of the sea ice, where Weddell moms gather usually in colonies during the Austral Spring pupping season. This Montana State University Weddell seal population and mass dynamics study focuses on seals in the Erebus Bay area where there are numerous seasonal pupping colonies to which Weddell moms return year after year to give birth and mate. These seals are "philopatric," meaning that they usually return to the place where they were born to give birth to pups of their own.
Weddell seals are excellent divers. They can hold their breath for up to an hour or more, and dive to around 2000 ft. Because they can hold their breath for so long, they are able to travel far under the sea ice to access the top on the sea ice to give birth where there are no natural predators that might prey on their vulnerable pups. They make use of tidal cracks and holes in the ice that occur where the sea ice meets the fast ice--ice that is fastened to the shorelines. Weddells use their big sharp teeth to rake the ice and widen cracks and holes to keep them open for breathing and access to the top of the sea ice to haul out. Weddell moms will also use their teeth to make ramps along the sides of holes and cracks that help their new pups get back out of the water as they learn to swim. More on these amazing animals to come!
While we await word from the 2021 Antarctic field team currently undergoing managed isolated quarantine in Christchurch, New Zealand in preparation for heading to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, I thought I'd post this black & white video of a Weddell seal mom giving birth to her new pup. This video was shot during the 2011 Weddell seal pupping season when I deployed with the field team and was able to do a lot of filming. I've been making videos about this project since 2008 when I first deployed to produce videos for the International Polar Year, and created short video portraits for the Women Working In Antarctica Project and interviewed then MS student Jen Mannas about the work of the Weddell seal project.
During the upcoming pupping season in Erebus Bay we will be posting updates from the field and articles about Weddell seals. We'll also be delving further into the importance of studying this population of Weddell seals and adding to a dataset that is now over 50 years old. You can check out more of our videos on our YouTube Channel and learn more about the Weddell population study on our outreach website.
The 2021 field team is on its way to Antarctica! Dr. Jay Rotella, Principal Investigator and lead scientist on the project, says that "the current plan has the team members heading to San Francisco on September 11th, where they will undergo some covid testing and be housed while they await being cleared for a chartered flight to Christchurch, New Zealand. Once in Christchurch, the group is to be housed in a managed, isolated quarantine (MIQ) for 14 days before they fly to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. We really appreciate all that is being done in the background by so many to allow us to field a team. We also really appreciate all that each of our team members is doing to get to McMurdo safely so that they can continue our data collection despite the many challenges."
This season, as with last year, the field team will consist of only 3 people due to covid restraints. This is half the usual number needed to complete all the field work required during the season, which means the field team will have their hands full doing everything they are able to keep this dataset intact!
The 2021 Antarctica field team consists of the following people, per Jay Rotella:
1) Parker Levinson - Parker is a new M.S. student on the project and will be our crew leader. She was a great research technician on our project last season. She also worked on penguins at Cape Royds the past 2 years. Over the summer, she spent a great deal of time preparing to be our crew leader; Kaitlin Macdonald, our very experienced Ph.D. student and multi-time project participant and crew leader, has been a great help with Parker’s preparations and will be standing by to provide advice as needed. We are really fortunate to have Parker on our team and as our crew leader. She is ready and well prepared, and we really appreciate all she’s done to get ready.
2) Victor Villalobos - Victor is a new M.S. student on the project and will be really valuable as he worked on the project in 2 different years: one when we had a camp at Big Razorback and one when we were based out of Turtle Rock. Victor has always been a great team member, very helpful with all aspects of camp life and field work, and very knowledgeable about our field gear, study area, and our tagging and survey procedures. Because our crew last year was not able to travel by snowmobile to areas north of the Erebus Glacier Tongue and couldn’t work at Tent or Inaccessible Islands due to open water there, Parker didn’t get to experience our typical work in those outer areas of the study area. Victor’s experience in those areas as well as all other aspects of our field project will be valuable indeed! Victor also has a lot of great experience working on other large mammals in challenging environments, including multiple years of experience on grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
3) Evan Shields - Evan just completed his M.S. degree on trumpeter swan research in Yellowstone National Park working on historical data for the species abundance and status in the Park over multiple decades. Dr. Jay Rotella served as Evan’s graduate advisor, and notes that Evan did a great job on his thesis. He also has lots of field experience working on a diversity of mammals (including mountain lions and deer) and birds. He has developed a lot of excellent data management and analysis skills, which will make him a doubly-valuable asset on our project. This will be his first season in Antarctica.
We hope to get updates from the field team during the 14 day managed, isolated quarantine in Christchurch, and will post these updates as they arrive. Stay tuned for another very challenging and vital Weddell seal population and mass dynamics study field season!
Special Report from 2020 Field Team Leader, Kaitlin MacDonald:
Our crew has now completed the 2020 field season and we are awaiting the arrival of a LC-130 cargo plane that will take us back to Christchurch and eventually our homes in the US.
This year was quite different from any of my previous for a number of reasons. Due to the pandemic reductions in personnel that were made across McMurdo station our crew was reduced to three people. This year we had unusual sea ice conditions with the ice edge basically ending at the Erebus Glacier Tongue. For our crew this meant no Big Razorback field camp and more importantly only helicopter access to the northside of our study area. During this unusual season we were able to get quite a bit done despite the challenges we faced.
If you’ve been following along this year you will know we set-up two emergency camps with tents, food and fuel in case we were stuck in poor weather on either side of our study area. On the North side of the study area this is where we would land and stage our snowmobiles. Our last few days on the sea ice were spent deconstructing these camps and getting the gear back to McMurdo.
One of our snowmobiles is rigged to be transported back to McMurdo
Our largest success this season was tagging pups in the study area. We were able to tag all pups that were safely accessible in our study area and make the association between pups and mothers for most pups that were tagged. We ended up tagging over 500 pups this year. This was an important task for our crew as it allows us to know whether a seal was born in the study area, provides us with ages of individuals, and allows us to record reproductive histories for adult females.
Will and Parker prepare to tag a pup
This year we continued our mass dynamics work weighing a subset of mothers and pups. We also deployed temperature tags on the pups that we weighed. While we were able to get mid-lactation masses for nearly all pups enrolled, due to deteriorating sea ice conditions the sea ice was closed to travel, and we were unable to get weaning masses for the majority of pups.
A fully molted pup catches some zzz's at Hutton Cliffs
In addition to weighing pups and photographing mothers the latter half of our season was spent doing study area surveys and retagging individuals that were missing full tag sets. We were very happy to have the time to retag adults with less than full tag sets as this work will ensure that we continue to get individual data for these seals. Our study area wide surveys can be quite long days because we spend these days making sure we record the tag numbers of every seal that is accessible within the study area. With only three of us our study area wide surveys took a bit longer and the number completed was reduced from a normal year, but we were still able to get these valuable data.
The 2020 crew at the end of our final survey (from left to right: Kaitlin, Parker, and Will).
Our crew had the great fortune to spot three of the iconic Antarctic species during our work on the sea ice. We spotted a number of Adélie penguins, a large group of emperor penguins, and a pair of snow petrels!
Emperor penguins at North Base
While this year was one of the more unusual for B-009 we are grateful to have the opportunity to continue our long-term study this year. We are thankful to the contractors and support staff at McMurdo who worked so hard to make our field season a reality! We couldn’t have achieved as much as we did without the hard work of Parker and Will, who stepped up to the challenge as first year crew members making this season fun and successful!
The sea ice of Erebus Bay, Antarctica near McMurdo Station is now closed to further sea ice travel due to large cracks developing in the sea ice. Fortunately the 2020 Weddell Seal Population and Mass Dynamics Study field team was able to retrieve vital seal recording and logging instruments, complete one last seal survey, and obtain weights on the last group of pups.
Photos, above, courtesy Natalie Brechtel and Ben Adkison of McMurdo Field Safety & Training, show changes in the crack in the sea ice near Turtle Rock one week apart.
We hope to post one last 2020 field update from the Weddell seal study field team soon, with further information on this season's Weddell population, and number of pups born.
Special from Kaitlin MacDonald, Field Team Leader:
Our field season has flown by and we have just a brief time left to finish out the season. Towards the end of October and early November our crew of three was busy tagging pups and enrolling mother-pup pairs in our mass study. More recently we have been weighing pups on the south side of the study area.We spent the past few weeks getting 20-day weights of pups and taking photos of their mothers for mass estimates.
Photo of Our Field Team Courtesy Natalie Brechtel
We are just now working to get the third and final mass measurement of pups enrolled in our mass study. At 35-days old we weigh these pups to get an approximate weaning mass and remove the temperature tag that has been attached to the pup’s flipper since birth. These tags record the time and temperature and provide a record of when the pup was in the water.There is incredible variation in the time pups first enter the water, 4 days old to 32 days old, and the amount of time pups spend in the water. Shane Petch who recently defended his master’s thesis did some interesting work with the amount of time pups spend in the water.
Mom and pup lounging in the sun at Hutton cliffs, photo by Parker Levinson
We also flew out to White Island to tag pups and do a survey of individuals at this small colony. One of the mothers we encountered at White Island was 29 years old. Since the oldest mother we have recorded is 31 years old it was quite exciting to see such an old mom at White Island and what looks to be her healthy pup.
In this very unusual 2020 Weddell seal pupping season, the Antarctic Field Team took some time to do a cool brief interview at the Hutton Cliffs Weddell pupping colony. Hope you enjoy it!
This short video was produced on location by the 2020 Antarctica Field Team: crew leader Kaitlin MacDonald, and field team members Parker Levinson and Will McDonald. More information on the Weddell Seal Population and Mass Dynamics Project at WeddellSealScience.com.
This has been probably the most unusual Weddell seal pupping season in the project's 51 year history. First, the lengthy quarantines the three person team went through to get to the Ice and keep Antarctica Covid-free. Then the closeness of the sea ice edge this season, which prevents vehicular travel north of the Erebus Glacier Tongue where numerous Weddell seal pupping colonies are located. (All photos by team member Will MacDonald.)
Notes lead project scientist Dr. Jay Rotella, "Our team is making the best of the season and collecting lots of useful data thanks to the great support from many people that work at McMurdo Station and from the National Science Foundation. Pups are being born at a rapid clip though that should start to slow down pretty dramatically in another week or so."
"For the next 6-7 weeks, the team will start to focus more of their time on population surveys. By mid-December, we’ll know a lot more about pup production and the size of the adult population size in this interesting year," reports Dr. Rotella.
It has been a busy start to an interesting season. Our team of three has been working hard to prepare emergency caches on the sea ice and start tagging pups.
Our emergency cache on the north side of the Erebus Glacier Tongue. Photo by Parker Levinson
The sea ice edge which currently runs from the Erebus Glacier Tongue up to Tent and Inaccessible islands prevents our team from driving to the north half of our study area. To access the north side of the study area we will be using helicopter support this year. Before we could start flagging routes and tagging pups in the northern and southern halves of our study area we had to set-up an emergency cache where we can hunker down if the weather deteriorates while we are working. We successfully set-up both our caches with the wonderful help of folks from McMurdo. These caches are well stocked and will be a cozy refuge should we ever need them.
We have also been hard at work getting caught up tagging the pups that were born before we were able to start day trips to the sea ice. Our team does their best to tag every pup at each colony every other day so that we can ensure the birthdate of a pup occurred during a 48-hour window.
Knowing a pup’s birthday within 48 hours of birth allows us to ask interesting questions such as whether pup birthdates are related to maternal age or mass loss of mothers during lactation. Tagging pups soon after they are born also allows us to more easily identify the mothers of pups as they are in very close contact during the first week or so after birth.
Weddell seals at Turtle Rock
It's difficult to say exactly how we are doing in terms of pup numbers compared to previous years because we have only been able to access two of the colonies at this point. I did compare numbers for Hutton and Turtle Rock from previous years and it looks like we are at a similar number of pups tagged by this point last year. Our next flight to the north side is Wednesday so hopefully we should get a better idea of actual pup numbers after that flight, although it might be later than that considering we will need to flag a route to the north side colonies on Wednesday.
The sea ice edge in Erebus Bay of the Ross Sea in Antarctica is much further south this season, running right up to the end of the Erebus Glacier Tongue, and cutting off vehicle access to the Weddell seal colonies beyond the Tongue in the Erebus Bay study area.
This means that access to many of the Weddell seal colonies in the study area will require travel by helicopter, since snowmobiles cannot safely cross the Erebus Glacier Tongue (EGT). In many recent previous seasons, the Weddell Seal Study field team would be based at a remote sea ice camp located at Big Razorback Island. However, this very unusual season there is no way to transport the sea ice camp huts beyond the EGT. Below is a photograph by Natalie Brechtel, the Sea Ice Point of Contact, of the south side of Big Razorback Island and the sea ice edge beyond:
Inaccessible Island is in the background. This season the sea ice presents uneven frozen terrain, and requires great care in traveling, especially in flat light. Our field team is very well-trained in sea ice safety and safe travel.
Below is an image from a previous season showing the location of many of the Weddell seal colonies, as well as the placement in many of the previous years of the remote sea ice camp of the Weddell seal study field team members.- Mary Lynn Price
Following weeks of Covid-19 quarantines put in place by the U.S. Antarctic Program to keep Antarctica Covid-free, the 2020 Antarctica field team is now on the Ice at McMurdo Station! The three-person team arrived on a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport jet.
This unusual year the three-person team will be based at McMurdo Station, and will work in the Erebus Bay study area as weather permits to assess and record all the new pups born in the study area this season. This work will maintain the 51 year continuity of this Weddell Seal Population and Mass Dynamics Ecology Study, which is unique in the scientific community.
The Study Team in Antarctica this year consists of the following members:
Kaitlin Macdonald, Weddell seal research field team crew leader Kaitlin Macdonald is a current MSU Ph.D. student being advised by Co-Principal Investigators and Montana State University-Bozeman Professors, Drs. Jay Rotella and Robert Garrott. Kaitlin is crew leader for the field crew. She has worked on Montana State University research projects since 2012 and joined the Weddell seal project in 2014. She is now in her 6th year on the Weddell seal project. Kaitlin has also done field work with mountain ungulates and small mammals. She received her M.S. in Fish and Wildlife Management in 2018.
Parker Levinson, Weddell seal research field team Parker received her bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 2018, and has worked a variety of seasonal wildlife jobs from studying leatherback sea turtles in the tropics to Adélie penguins in the Antarctic. Originally from Monterey Peninsula, California, Parker enjoys hiking, photography, and reading in her spare time.
Will McDonald, Weddell seal research field team Will graduated from Montana State University with a bachelor’s degree in Organismal Biology. He has worked on numerous wildlife research projects, involving a diverse group of species including birds, mesocarnivores, ungulates, and large carnivores. Most recently, Will has been working on a bighorn sheep nutritional ecology project and serving as a statistical analyst/programmer for an environmental consulting firm back home in Wyoming. In his free time, Will enjoys biking, ceramics, and cooking a good meal.
This season, the sea ice edge (where the ice ends and the sea begins) is quite close to the Weddell seal study area. Here is a photo of the sea ice edge behind Tent and Inaccessible Islands:
Please check back soon for updates on the team's work with the Weddell seals of Erebus Bay in the Ross Sea of Antarctica! Learn more about the study, the project, and the Weddell seals at WeddellSealScience.com.
Despite challenging sea ice conditions this year, it's been a productive and successful Weddell seal population study science season in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. Lead scientist Dr. Jay Rotella reports that "the population produced an above-average number of pups and we were very successful at obtaining body-mass dynamics information on a solid sample of mothers and pups at birth and during lactation."
The field research team also encountered a number of older Weddell moms with pups again this year, seals that have come to be know as "super moms" due to their unusually long lives and high number of pups birthed over their extended lifetimes. Here's the latest short project video produced by Jeremy Schmidt about Weddell Seal Super Moms:
Science work in the Erebus Bay study area this pupping season was made more challenging than usual for the field research team by the sea ice conditions. "Despite the ice being somewhat thinner and warmer than is typical, we were able to safely and successfully conduct all of our work", notes Rotella. "The main implications of the thinner ice had to do with the heavy equipment that hauls our four huts for our camp out to the sea ice early in the season and back to McMurdo at the end of our season."
"The ice thickness led to concerns for safely operating the heavy equipment. Thus, our field camp could only be on the sea ice for part of our field season. Fortunately, much of the new ice that was present this year allowed us to get our work done despite working from McMurdo Station (rather than our sea-ice camp) for the last portion of our season."
That science work consisted of locating all the new pups born in the study area, placing small unique identifying tags between their rear flippers, and adding info on those pups and their moms into the extensive multi-decade Weddell seal database. A select number of pups and moms had their mass (weight) assessed, with pups weighed at birth, in the middle of the approximately 45 day nursing period, and then again at the end of the nursing period. Some of those pups also received a small temporary tag to record how often and how long those pups spent in the water learning to swim and spending time close to their moms. The field research team also made several surveys of the entire study area to determine the total number of Weddell seals present this year.
With these data added to the extensive population database, project scientists are able to better understand how this population is faring, and make new discoveries about what characteristics of Weddell moms and pups are important to Weddell pup survival to adulthood and successful future reproduction. The scientists are also able to construct detailed genealogies for many of the seals studied year after year. And this information identifies Weddell seal super moms in the process!
For more short articles on the science work of the project, what we've learned and how we've learned it, and these amazing Weddell seals, check out our collection of posts and articles, images and video on our Select Articles page of WeddellSealScience.com. We have lots of great images and info available on our Weddell Seal Science Instagram page, and many more videos on our Weddell Seal Science YouTube Channel!
In Part Four of our longer project documentary "How Moms Matter To Weddell Seal Pups" the focus is on what project scientists are learning about Weddell pup birth timing during the pupping season. Are pups better off if they're born in the early part of the season, late in the season, or somewhere in the middle? How do differences in Weddell moms affect the time in the season when the pup is likely to be born? Turns out that the time during the season when a pup is born, and the age and experience of that pup's mom, can affect the pup's likelihood of survival to adulthood to have a pup of her own.
Weddell seals have developed many different fascinating adaptations for living and thriving in the cold icy environment of Antarctica. For example, they have evolved large strong sharp front teeth to use to rake the sea ice to enlarge and keep holes and cracks open so they can breath and access the surface of the sea ice. They also have developed the ability to hold their breath for over an hour to make long dives beneath the Antarctic sea ice.
These seals also have a special secret to getting around when they're on top of the sea ice! Here's the Weddell Seal Population Project's latest short-short video produced by Jeremy Schmidt that shows us how it's done!
In keeping with the challenging sea ice conditions this season around McMurdo Station and the Weddell seal population study area of Erebus Bay, the project’s remote sea ice camp is now being pulled a few weeks earlier than in previous recent seasons. Reports lead scientist Jay Rotella, "We have had a very good year for pup production and other data collection." Sea ice camp this season had been placed at Turtle Rock nearer McMurdo due to this year's challenging sea ice conditions. Turtle Rock is located a good distance from some of the more remote pupping colonies the field team must access in the Erebus Bay study area to do their science work. For over a decade, camp has been placed at Big Razorback Island, further out in the study area and more central to many of the pupping colonies.
HDR photo of the study's Kitchen Hut at Big Razorback Island in 2010
The sea ice this season is thinner in places and can be more troublesome for heavy equipment now. Yet the field research team’s work gathering data on the seals throughout the study area continues! This work keeps intact a multi-generational Weddell seal database unique in the scientific community, and is made possible by the many hard hours put in by the field team and the dedicated assistance of many different groups and support personnel on the Ice.
There are a few later-season pup births still taking place, and numerous pups and moms that the research team must continue to follow until the nursing period is over. The field team will work from McMurdo Station now to continue to get into the field as safely and successfully as they are able to gather necessary data.
In Part 3 of our project’s longer video, “How Moms Matter To Weddell Pups”, the presentation focuses on what the scientists are learning about how differences among Weddell moms and pups may effect the pup's survival to adulthood. And particularly when it comes to when during the pupping season the pups are born, how much they weigh at birth, and then how much at weaning. It will be interesting to learn if and how the challenging sea ice conditions this season affect the survival to adulthood of this year’s cohort of pups!
The Antarctica Weddell seal population study's remote sea ice camp is at Turtle Rock this year due in part to the sea ice conditions this season. Peak Weddell pupping season is now winding down. New pups will continue to be born for some time, but not at nearly the rate of peak season. Lead project scientist Montana State University professor Jay Rotellareports, "we don’t have internet [at our sea ice camp] and have been able to work each day without weather delays." While this has limited internet updates on the season as it has progressed, it has also allowed the field team to take full advantage of peak pupping time to get a lot of work done!
Since our last report from the ice, the field team has been able to get out into the field without substantial weather delays and put a lot of effort into finding and working with the seals in the Erebus Bay study area. Notes Rotella in his new update, "It looks to be another big year for pup production with over 500 pups [born] so far this year. It’s also a great year for getting data on time spent in water by pups and on weight gain and loss by pups and their mothers."
Here's an award winning project short video documentary that presents information on work done by the project on assessing Weddell seal pup time spent in the water. As scientists learn more every year about which pups actually survive to return as adults to have pups of their own, researchers will be able to better understand the relationship between pup time spent in the water learning to swim and other Weddell seal life skills, and Weddell pup survival to return as reproducing adults.
For viewers interested in watching stereo 3D videos, here's an award-winning project stereoscopic short documentary video on Weddell pup swimming behavior and survival. You'll need 3D glasses to get the stereoscopic effect...
The Erebus Bay Antarctica Weddell seal pupping season is now at its peak. The field research team is currently working to find all the Weddell pups born in the study area to identify, tag, and add them to the over 50 year population database. The team is weighing a select group of pups and moms to determine their current weights, and measuring the time select pups spend in the water during the approximately month and a half long nursing period.
The field researchers must travel to all the different Weddell pupping colonies in the Erebus Bay study area to do their jobs. Their travel is usually by snowmobile. This season the sea ice has been interesting and a bit challenging, yet the field team carries on during what is a very busy Weddell pupping season! We'll update you with new pup numbers as soon as field team members can access the internet.
The project scientists are gathering data to learn the extent of differences--variation--among Weddell moms and pups. As more is learned about variation in these Weddell moms and pups, the scientists are able to gather data about how many pups with particular characteristics survive to adulthood to have pups of their own. Researchers can follow the generations of pups born to particular moms, and are assessing the contributions to the population of surviving pups. The scientists are thus able to learn more about which individual characteristics have significant effects on pup survival to reproduction.
In the following Part 2 segment from our latest project documentary, "How Moms Matter To Weddell Pups", the topic of Weddell seal variation is introduced. Subsequent segments from this original 14 minute project documentary highlight the effects that such differences among Weddell moms and pups can have as to whether a pup will survive to adulthood and reproduction, and which of those moms are so successful that they have numerous pups, some of which go on to also become very successful moms...Weddell seal super moms!
Below, is an earlier project documentary on Weddell seal variation, "Being Different if You're a Weddell Seal in Antarctica". This previous documentary goes into some detail about the kinds of variation among Weddell seals that the scientists are finding. The new documentary, "How Moms Matter To Weddell Pups", takes everything a step further by presenting some of what the scientists have learned to date about the effects on pup survival of particular characteristics among Weddell moms and pups. Here is that full video for a bit of background: