Weddell Seal Science

2020 Weddell Seal Pupping Season Underway!

Special from Crew Leader Kaitlin MacDonald

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.

- Kaitlin MacDonald

Antarctica Sea Ice Conditions Challenge the 2020 Field Team

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

2020 Antarctica Field Team Now On The Ice!

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.

- Mary Lynn Price