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.
- Kaitlin MacDonald
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