Tag Archives: elephant seal

Marine Science and possible blind sea lion

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • A couple visitors on island observing the elephant seal molt also Laura’s marine science class are doing transect studies in the intertidal zone, yesterday and today

Maintenance

  • Solar has been great lately so I haven’t had to run the generator too much and I have been able to run the desalinator periodically on solar power, still waiting for the new desalinator and once that is up running I would love to pressure wash all of the buildings, they have quite a build up of algae on them.

Ecological

  • A young stellar sea lion was acting strangely on the jetty yesterday, it wasn’t opening its eyes and it was the last one off the jetty, instead of diving off it carefully backed off the jetty tail first, it didn’t appear frail or injured but it was acting very strange which led me to think it was blind, it is branded so I am going to look for it to see if I can get a clear picture of the brand and maybe identify this sea lion and get it help if it needs it.
  • three goose nests were not able to be addled this year, so we will have some goslings running around, but the rest of the nests have been successfully addled
  • still 13 elephant seals, a few young males and mostly older females plus the male pup is still here, he seems to be doing pretty well although he does go swimming I’m not sure if he has started hunting yet

Goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • No visitors but quite a few tour boats

Maintenance

  • Just trying to fill up the water tank before guests come to stay in the guest house for a few nights

Ecological

  • The eggs hatched a little sooner than planned, so I missed addling that nest, but the goslings are pretty cute, there are a total of 8 nests this year, as far as I have seen
  • still 13 elephant seals here, the male pup is still around too and most of the elephants have started molting

Rainy day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • No visitors but quite a few tour boats came to look at the otter in the north kelp bed

Maintenance

  • Its been very cloudy all day so I’ll run the generator and desalinator tonight

Ecological

  • still 13 elephants around, the male pup is still here
  • have to walk around with a broom because the geese can get pretty vicious when walking by
  • plenty of sea lions and harbour seals around and a lot of gulls
  • there has also been quite a bit of eagle activity, they like to chase the seagull’s around

13 Elephants

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few visitors this morning, and some help addling goose eggs

Maintenance

  • Haven’t had quite enough sunlight lately so I’ve ran the generator a couple of times but I haven’t had to run it too much

Ecological

  • 13 elephants seals, only one has molted and about 4 of these elephants are young males, between 1-3 years old
  • Nemo the male pup is still here, Dory left a little while ago
  • There are at least 5 or 6 goose nests around that need addling, which we do here as population control of the geese

Cameras are back up

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-5 SE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few visitors this morning

Maintenance

  • as many of you noticed the cameras were down, that is because there was an issue without the router on Saturday, we just got replacement parts today and everything should be up running this also includes my internet which means I can post on this blog again

Ecological

  • A lot of elephant seals lately, there are 7 females and 4 males, this includes the pup
  • The males are very small, no big noses yet, they must be 2 or 3 years old, one of them has a green tag D018
  • the female pup left two days ago but the male pup is still here, he will probably leave any day now
  • only one of the females has been molting so far, the other 6 will probably start soon
  • I have counted 6 goose nests so far, I haven’t been able to addle them because I do need someone to help me fend off the geese while one takes the eggs. We do this is a population control method and have a permit to addle goose eggs

Storming

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Final exam/assignments the past week have kept me very busy, so here is  an update on the current elephant seals

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-35 SE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • No boats out there today

Ecological

  • There are 3 mature females, one young male and the pups are still here. I have not seen any molting yet, the females will be going through that soon
  • There are 3 goose nests that I’ve seen, I attempted to addle the eggs but there was no getting past those geese which seem extra vicious this year
  • Still about 100 sea lions, mix of california and stellar, mostly california
  • Theres usually nearly 50 or 60 harbour seals out on the rocks, not today due to the storm

C887

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • had a couple of visitors today, come by for a little tour

Ecological

  • Turns out the elephant seal we have been identifying as female since it first turned up in December 2017 is actually a male. It is tagged, a green tag C887
  • I noticed he went through a major growth spurt since spotting him in December 2018 which is common in male elephant seals but not really in females, he is hanging out with the tagged elephant seal that had the pup here in January
  • the pups are doing great, swimming in the mornings when the adults are out of the water, they don’t interact much with the mature elephant seals

Molting

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-20 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: A little choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • a few boats out today
  • had someone out here to look at the desal, hopefully solving that issue soon

Maintenance

  • we’ve been getting a lot of solar but today is cloudy so I’ll run the generator and desal for a few hours

Ecological

  • the pups are having fun splashing around
  • there are 3 females altogether, one of them is quite young probably 2 or 3 years old the other two are much older and they will be molting soon, we should be expecting more females within the next couple weeks
  • no more male elephant seals around just the pup
  • not  a lot of sea lions but there are plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks
  • I have not spotted any goose nests yet but I’m sure it’ll happen soon, not looking forward to that, looks to be at least 8 nesting pairs on island

Beautiful weather

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few boats the last couple days, from canoes to sailboats and some people from the college

Maintenance

  • There has been so much solar, I don’t need to run the generator very much, so thats been really nice

Ecological

  • There was a pretty young sea lion pup on the rock by the crane today
  • the pups have not gone in the water today but they are wandering around quite a bit, so they will probably be splashing around soon, I think the female pup might have put her flipper in for a moment but I’m not sure
  • One of the mothers came back very briefly, the tagged female, pink tag T562, who gave birth to the female pup on Jan 4th was here for maybe a couple hours then she went back into the water

Beautiful weather

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • a few boats out today, fishing sailing and ecotours

Maintenance

  • Ran the desal for awhile, tank is topped up, hopefully, no more running it for hours every day

Ecological

  • It looks like the female pup might have gone in today, if she didn’t then she was very close, I will check again tomorrow morning if the pups are in the water
  • the male pup has been beside the house all day, so I know he didn’t go in
  • still one other male elephant on island, Bernard, the alpha
  • closer to 200 sea lions today, maybe due to the nice weather we’ve been having, also a lot of harbour seals on the south rock
  • the number of gulls is slowly increasing, at least from the noise level it seems like it