wounded elephant seal

Wednesday, February 27, 2002
[2/27/2002 20:13:23 PM | Chris Blondeau
Good evening
Weather: Partly cloudy with sunny breaks>> >>Vis 15 miles>> >> Wind West 5-10 Knots this morning and 15-25 this afternoon>> >> Sea 2 foot chop.
MARINE LIFE: Another parade of Bald Eagles this morning. 3 immature and about 6 adults scattered on the various rocks around the reserve. 4 Canada geese spent the better part of the day on Great Race island. I spotted the young male Elephant Seal with wounds on his back laying with a female on top of middle rock. The blood stains he left on the docks on Monday are still visible. He seems to be doing alright. Another adult male spent a good portion of the afternoon floating around and vocalizing by the docks in front of the boat ramp. It looked for a while like he was going to haul ashore for the night but it was not to be.
HUMAN INTERACTION: One rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina spent about an hour in the area sightseeing and taking pictures of the wildlife. A Coast Guard helicopter landed a crew this afternoon to perform some maintenance on the solar panels, storage batteries, fog horn and beacon on top of the tower.
This afternoon I undertook to clean our specimen tank. A lot of the sediments carried by the water we pump in never gets a chance to make the return trip to the ocean. As a result it settles in the tank and needs to be removed periodically. So all the specimens were transferred to another tank; the main tank emptied, cleaned and restocked.
Have a look on camera 1.
More tomorrow
Chris
posted by Chris Blondeau at 11:42 AM