At last!! I have a brief moment to post about the past month on the ice of McMurdo Sound! Internet access (and showers) have been few and far between but today I have a chance to show some photos of the adventures of B-009 since mid-October. B-009 is our team’s identification number and originated when the project was first started in 1968. The Weddell Seal Project was only the ninth biology study to be started!
A Weddell pup lounges on the ice not far from mom.
Gathering our field equipment in a snowstorm
We moved into field camp on October 17th. Our camp consists of four huts (a kitchen hut, two bunk huts, and a gear hut) as well as a small outhouse called the Center of Excellence. Camp sits on top of the sea ice just northwest of Big Razorback Island. Mount Erebus sends up smoke from it’s active volcanic crater in the distance. When it is very quiet seals can be heard calling from underwater just below our huts.
The four main huts of Big Razorback Camp. In order from closest to farthest: gear hut, men's hut, women's hut, and kitchen hut. The Center of Excellence is hiding behind the bunk huts.
Groups of Emperor Penguins pass through camp investigating our brightly colored huts and snowmobiles before moving on to investigate the nearby seal colony.
Our first week was spent building our roads for the season. These flagged routes mark safe routes to our study sites and are important to be near if weather is turning bad. Sometimes you must navigate from flag to flag in order to get home and out of a storm when blowing snow eliminates all visibility.
Lunch in the field is always delicious. We bring hot water and make ramen noodles and hot chocolate!
Peak pupping took place the last few days of October and is now dwindling daily. We were tagging up to 60 pups per day during October 28th & 29th! This year has broken the record number of recorded pups at over 700 pups! Now we see only one or two “freshies” daily and those will probably stop showing up shortly. A freshie is identified by an unfrozen placenta on the ground with a wet pup nearby steaming in the cold air.
Newborn pups spend hours rolling about next to mom and studying their newly discovered flippers. They hold them in the air and experimentally nibble them before rolling over to scratch their bellies or cheeks while mom sleeps soundly.
Every 5 or 6 days we conduct surveys of the entire study area and record every single seal in our survey books and field computers. During our first survey we counted over 1500 individuals!
An adult Weddell napping in the sun
Pups are beginning to learn to swim and are molting their baby pup fur (lanugo). Some of them are quite hideous these days with bald patches that make them look like a chubby E.T. laying on the ice! They fall asleep and freeze to the snow so that when they roll over big patches of fur stay stuck to the ice and the pup is left with dark adult fur showing through the lanugo.
A sun dog seen from camp. The island to the left is Tent Island and the one in the center is Inaccessable Island.
The days are already warming up and cracks in the ice are widening. Soon if you peer into the water we will be able to see starfish and tube worms on the ocean floor below. The other day was a balmy 16 degrees F and I was shedding layers like crazy!
Camp as seen from the Big Razorback seal colony with the Royal Societies in the distance across the sound from us.
Soon the focus will shift to making sure the adults have tags that will stay on their flippers so we don’t lose their identity and therefore the data about their age and pupping history. Hopefully posts won’t be so far apart, but it’s hard to say! Til next time!
All photos obtained under NMFS Photo Permit 21158