Weather:

• Sky overcast
• Visibility 1-10 NM – intermittent fog with a consistent layer of wildfire smoke
• Wind 5-15 knots W
• Calm water, rippled surface

Visitors/Traffic: 

• One contractor visited the island yesterday, along with Greg and Lawrence the day previous.
• Minimal tourism and pleasure craft activity (5-10 boats coming through daily)
• Today Marine Mammal Rescue and DFO visited the reserve by water to look for entangled sea lions that had been reported to DFO. Unfortunately we were not able to spot the animals reported. Despite multiple vessels, the view from the lighthouse, and even a drone!

Ecological Observations: 

• The increase in sea lions seems to be slowing and tapering off. Wherever there is available space, they haul out and fight for the best place to rest.
• The elephant seal ‘Erica’ GE103 is still sticking around, and spends most of her time resting near the base of the jetty.
• We noticed a robin hopping around on the grass yesterday but unfortunately didn’t get a picture.
• We did see one sea lion with an entanglement injury on Sunday evening. It was the same one reported to DFO by a visitor in the reserve (boating past). We were not able to spot him again, and today we found the flasher which had been hanging from his mouth on the ground.