This gallery contains 6 photos.
Wind: yesterday W 15-40 knots, today variable 2-17 knotsSea State: yesterday up to 0.5m chop, today up to 1 m chopVisibility: both days 10-15 NMSky: both days partly cloudyTemperature: both days 4-7 °CAtmospheric CO2: 415.60 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii) … Continue reading
Wind: yesterday variable 1-21 knots, today W 2-31 knots
Sea State: both days rippled
Visibility: both days 10-15 NM
Sky: both days partly cloudy then clearing in the mid morning
Temperature: yesterday 4-10 °C, today 5-6 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 415.81 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
Yesterday morning, a new elephant seal arrived on the island. He has green tags on each tail flipper, D018 and D019. The green tags signify it was tagged at Año Nuevo Reserve, similar to the female juvenile seal here right now. Due to the website being down for a few days, I didn’t realize at the time the seal was the same one here for the last two weeks of December. The seal was also seen here for two weeks in April 2019. I reported the sighting to Dr. Patrick Robinson, the Director of Año Nuevo Reserve, near San Francisco in California. He reported back that the seal was born at the beginning of 2017, meaning he is now a three year old sub adult. Based on the photos I sent Dr. Robinson and included in the gallery below, he determined the seal is in great body condition but fur/skin is in poor condition.
In the past few days, the sea lions have been taking over the jetty, something they haven’t done in critical mass since the beginning of the winter. This afternoon, I finished setting up and testing the electric fence on the jetty to deter sea lions from congregating and damaging the railings and boat cleats. When I need to use the jetty to test the seawater or for boats, the sea lions need to be cleared off. No matter how slowly I approach the them, they only have one speed of getting off the jetty, which is stampede. It will take some time each day to maintain the fence from sea lions bumping it, as well as wind and waves.
Only one boat was seen in the ecological reserve, a Coast Guard rigid hull inflatable went through Middle Channel yesterday afternoon and stopped to take photos of sea lions on the rocks.
Wind: yesterday 2-15 knots from E to N, today 3-10 knots from S to N to E
Sea State: yesterday and today rippled
Visibility: yesterday and today 15 NM
Sky: yesterday and today clear
Temperature: yesterday 5-7 °C, today 5-8 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.73 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
The past two days have been sunny, which means the animals and scenery are very photogenic.
There was lots of activity with the elephant seal harem today. Overnight, the third mother left the island, after nursing her pup for 24 days. Her pup is now a weaner, no longer getting milk from her mother. The three mothers whose pups survived all stayed for 24 days. The last female, who’s pup died 17 days ago, left late this morning. After the male mated with her, she was either trying to get away from him or was chased down the path and out into the water by the boat ramp. The alpha male left for about an hour, perhaps to get some food. He’s been on the island the longest of any of the elephant seals. He hasn’t eaten or left the island since before the first pup was born on December 29. That’s almost as long as I’ve been here without leaving, except I eat three meals a day. The female elephant seals will most likely return to Race Rocks exactly eleven months after they left, to give birth to another pup. Stay tuned to the Log next December and January for more pupping season drama.
Now that there are no adult female elephant seals left on Race Rocks, the alpha male’s role has changed from mating with the females, to protecting the three pups that remain. The alpha male is most likely father to all of them, as he was the alpha male last year as well.
Three beta male elephant seals are still on the island. One left for about 24 hours and returned this afternoon. When he slid up the ramp onto the island, he appeared to look around to see if any females were around. Then, he headed for the oldest pup and put his mouth around it. He didn’t appear to be trying to hurt it because no blood was drawn. The pup was screaming. The alpha male came over and scared away the beta male. For the afternoon and evening, the three pups were lying in the grass about 10 m away from each other. It will be interesting to see if the pups interact with each other, as they have in previous years.
Some other interesting sights were a sea otter, two black brant geese, and a very bright Venus visible in the western sky for a few hours after sunset for each of the past three nights.
There were no visitors to the island in the past two days. Four pleasure boats and three tour boats were seen in the ecological reserve.
See below for photos from the past two days:
Wind: yesterday 3-32 knots from NE to S to W, today 3-45 knots from W to S
Sea State: yesterday rippled with chop up to 1 m in evening, today chop up to 1 m, then rippled in afternoon
Visibility: yesterday 5-10 NM, today 10-15NM
Sky: yesterday overcast and rain, today clear
Temperature: yesterday 5-9 °C, today 7-9 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.11 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
Results of weekly megafauna and bird census from Saturday, February 8:
9 elephant seals (2 female adults, 4 male adults, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
169 steller sea lions
202 california sea lions
29 harbour seals
41 bald eagles (37 adults, 4 juveniles)
1 raven
19 brandt’s cormorants
138 pelagic cormorants
65 double-crested cormorants
4 canada geese
412 gulls (most are thayer’s gulls)
20 black oystercatchers
2 surf scoters
20 harlequin ducks
35 surfbirds
26 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 fox sparrow
Yesterday in the morning, three members of the Coast Guard came in a helicopter to do a routine check on some equipment on the island. The pilot phoned ahead to confirm the best place to land to try to avoid disturbing the animals. They landed on the helicopter pad. Sometimes they land on the grass at the base of the lighthouse. The Coast Guard guys were excited to see the elephant seals, which they hadn’t seen before. Usually when they fly into the lightstations up the coast, they see a lot of sea lions.
In the afternoon yesterday, three visitors from Pearson College came to the island to have a tour.
The only other boats that were seen in the ecological reserve were two tour boats this afternoon.
See the photos below for some views from the last two days.
We received a response from the scientists who had tagged the elephant seal mentioned and pictured in this previous post. They were able to share some interesting information about GE103, whom we nicknamed Eric. GE103 was part of a mother and pup interaction study, as well as the subject of a blubber biopsy study.
“Eric”, GE103
Juliette Linossier, a researcher working under a Fyssen grant at UC Santa Cruz/Año Nuevo Reserve, was able to tell us more about the early life of this animal and others. She told us that shortly after the birth of another elephant seal (GE338), there was a huge storm at Año Nuevo and GE338 was separated from it’s mother. The pup was stuck on the beach, and his mother in an protected elevated area. They called to each other for a long while, but were never able to return to each other. GE338 did survive but was nursed by another female in the colony.
The now ’empty nest’ mother of GE338 became attached to GE103! She nursed him, and stayed close to him and his mother, G9474. Thus, GE103 (or as we call him, Eric) was able to take advantage of more than one milk source as a pup; the two mothers even fought over him from time to time.
According to her bio, Juliette wants to investigate the link between allonursing and maternal cognitive abilities using new approaches. Using time-lapse photography, chemical profiles and other techniques she plans to look at variables such as maternal age, pup similarity, genetic connection, spacial proximity and more to further understand what drives allonursing in these interesting creatures. Thanks for sharing, Juliette!
GE103’s blubber biopsies were taken for the purpose of furthering the understanding of pollutants bioaccumulating in marine mammals. Read more about this subject here.
Many thanks to Patrick Robinson, director of Año Nuevo Reserve and lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, for helping us learn more about this work.
We left Race Rocks last Monday (October 30th), and hours before leaving we were surprised by the landing of a Bell 412EPI Coast Guard helicopter. They came to Race Rocks in order to replace the solar battery bank beside the foghorn (near the base of the lighthouse). We were able to get great video of them landing as well as taking off!
Unfortunately, as one can see at the left of the video the landing scared many sea lions off of the rock in a rush. Without knowing that they were coming we had no chance to gently move any vulnerable animals away from the helicopter pad. We were able to speak with someone at the college about this, and the Coast Guard will hopefully be able to better work with Race Rocks in the future to ensure the safety and comfort of the animals.
The pilot was kind enough to take a moment to show us around and allow us to take some pictures. He explained that a smaller helicopter could have been landed near the house, but the 412EPI’s cargo capacity (over 6000lbs) was needed to transport the batteries. The helicopter is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6T-9 turboshaft engine that makes over 2000hp (about 1500kW), and it’s made in Canada!
We enjoyed our time at Race Rocks (a big thanks to everyone who supported us during our term), and hope to return and continue this work protecting and observing the fragile ecosystems and the animals within. Until next time!
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