Daily Archives: Sunday,February 7, 2016

Marine Mammals Hauled out on Race Rocks Jan 2014-Feb 2016

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This graph represents the 6 marine mammal species which haul out on Great Race Rocks in the Race Rocks Ecological reserve.  providing the population numbers and the time of year  CLICK to enlarge. The data was obtained from the Posts on census done by the Ecoguardians at Race Rocks.mammalcraph

The graph below represents the Elephant seal population at Race Rocks Ecological reserve with data taken from the Ecoguardian logs for January 2014 to January 2016. Click to enlarge.

elephantseal2014-2015

First Official Day On The Job

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After training last weekend, and a general review yesterday, I, Riley Strother, have now taken over as Ecoguardian from Alex Fletcher.

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-20 knots NE
  • Water: 1’ chop
  • Sky: overcast

Ecological

  • The first female elephant seal to give birth left the island at 7:30 in the morning and did not return. As such the first pup has now become a weaner.
  • Chunk appeared to mate with the female who lost her pup.
  • The newest pup is quite vocal and seems to be doing well. Chunk and the other female went along the path after mating to inspect the new mother and pup.
  • Alex was able to identify the number on the yellow flipper tag attached to the newest mother: 5928
  • There was quite a disturbance of seagulls and cormorants today when a raven with a small fish in its beak was chased all around the island by two eagles. Eventually the raven managed to land and eat the fish.
  • Conducted a census.
  1. California Sea Lions: 88
  2. Northern/Stellar Sea Lions: 53 (many sea lions were swimming in the waves and thus impossible to count)
  3. Elephant Seals: 8 (Chunk, weaner, grieving mother, new mum and pup, Middle Rock: Chuckles, mum and pup.)
  4. River Otter: 1
  5. Cormorants: 615
  6. Seagulls: 512
  7. Bald Eagles: 9 (7 juvenile, 2 adults)
  8. Raven: 1
  9. Crow: 1
  10. Black Oystercatchers: 6
  11. Harlequin Ducks: 4
  12. Canada Geese: 6
  13. Black Turnstones: 29

Maintenance

  • Cleared logs off the ramp two times.
  • Lowered the boat trailer because the cable coil was quite criss crossed. Managed to recoil the cable in a more orderly fashion.
  • Vacuumed up hundreds of fruit flies in the basement near the composting toilet.

Boats

  • Alex and Virginie left in the morning.
  • Surprised to see no eco-tourism boats about on such a nice Sunday.