The entire 2024 Antarctica Field Team, now joined by lead scientist Prof. Jay Rotella, heads out today for their first day in the field in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. The sea ice opened for snowmobile travel yesterday, and the team is trained up for safe work out on the sea ice. We'll post their report soon. Meanwhile, let me take this chance to introduce the multimedia people working with the Erebus Bay Weddell Seal Population Study.
First, Jeremy Schmidt is an accomplished author, and led the effort, wrote, and produced our new multimedia ebook, "Weddell Seals; Science, Life History, and Population Dynamics". This cool interactive ebook filled with photos, video and graphics is available for free at both Apple Books and Google Books. It's also available as a direct epub download on our Weddell Seal Science website. Numerous Field Team members (including Jeremy and myself) and lead scientists over the years contributed photos and video to this effort. And Jeremy is a great video producer as well! (He also has a wonderful voice for giving readings from this ebook on our Weddell Seal Science Audio Podcast!) Here's Jeremy's quick bio statement:
Hi, I'm Jeremy! I'm a writer and photographer of natural history and adventure travel, with a particular interest in the winding 
frontier between the modern world and what is left of the natural and indigenous. I'm also an author or co-author of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles for magazines—including Audubon, Equinox, International Wildlife, National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Natura (Italy), Panorama (Netherlands), Outside, GEO and others. Assignments have taken me to all continents, including Antarctica. Recent books include Searching for Tao Canyon, set in the slickrock country of America’s desert southwest; and Weddell Seals. My desired animal adaptation, speaking of seals, wouldn’t be to go with the blubber layer, even with winter just around the corner. I suppose my preference would be the ability to hold my breath for long periods and dive deep. Scuba without a tank would be a splendid way to enjoy the underwater world!
Hi, Mary Lynn here! I do video and multimedia work with the Weddell Seal Population Study. I started making short underwater digital videos in the late 1990s, launched the first streaming underwater video website in 
2000, DiveFilm.com, and launched the first underwater video podcast featured on iTunes in 2005. Did my first video on the Weddell Seal Population Study with Field Team leader and graduate student Jen Mannas back in 2008 when I was in Antarctica working on a different NSF polar science project at McMurdo Station. Came onboard the Weddell seal project in 2010 to do video and multimedia public science education and outreach work on this amazing Weddell Seal Population Study, launched this field blog in 2010, and have been working with this Weddell Study gratefully ever since! Were I to have one animal adaptation, it would have to be the breath-hold capability of an adult Weddell seal: dive for over an hour on a single breath if need be, and do typical dives of around 26 minutes each. Wow!
- Mary Lynn Price
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