A large sea ice crack in the Erebus Bay, Antarctica Weddell seal study area.
This beautiful photo courtesy Natalie Brechtel of the United States Antarctica Program (USAP).
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!
- Mary Lynn Price
With info and team bios provided by Dr. Jay Rotella