Tag Archives: elephant seal birth

Third Elephant Seal Pup

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Ecological Notes:

  • 2 female Elephant Seals (first mom has left the island for now)
  • 3 Elephant Seal pups, 3rd one born just before sunrise on Jan 26th, one month after the first pup was born

Visitors:

  • 36 Pearson College students, (over 6 trips) with their instructor

  • The Marine and Seafront Operations Coordinator transported students, groceries, parcels, and supplies.

Facility Work:

  • Replaced the motherboard on the Desalinator (again) as the last one was defective

Concentrate outflow from the Desalinator

  • After the first run, the main unit was due for an oil change, completed for the  high pressure pump.
  • Pacing myself on bucking, splitting and moving firewood

DND events:

  • Several detonations over a couple days. No disturbance noted.

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 4 Eco-Tourism vessels
  • 3  private vessels

 Feature Event:

  •  Checking heater tapes and heaters preparing for possible freezing weather.
  • Stored some extra tap water for dishes and washing, in case the lines freeze again

Not for drinking!

Weather Events:

  • Yesterday (Friday January 27):
    • Sky: Overcast
    • Wind: Variable 5-15 kts
    • Sea: rippled to 1 meter chop
    • Temperature Low 6oC, High 9oC
  • Today (Saturday January 28):
    • Sky: Overcast in the morning, afternoon, clear and sunny to overcast in the evening
    • Wind: E 5 to 15 knots in the morning,increasing to northeast 15 to 25 near noon and to NE 40+ kts in the evening
    • Sea:  1-2 meter waves and chop
    • Temperature Low  5oC, High 8 oC

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Elephant Seal Baby #2

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Ecological Notes:

  • 2 female Elephant Seals

  • 2 Elephant Seal pups (one born the morning of Friday the 13)

  • The yearling male is still determined top rest near the others, but they keep chasing him away
  • Humpback female and calf far west of the reserve, but viewable with binoculars (thanks to clarification by an eco-tourism guide)

Facility Work:

  • Fence work
  • Restacking some old lumber
  • Sweeping outbuildings 

Visitors:

  • Shorefront Coordinator brought 2 groups of students from Pearson College to see, and learn, about the Elephant Seals and the new pups

DND events:

  • 6  or 7 Detonations throughout the day on Friday
  • Some Sea Lion disturbance noted
  • The new mother Elephant Seal, jumped for the first couple of blasts at least

Weather Events:

  • Friday January 13:
    • Sky: Overcast with snow flurries
    • Wind: N/NE winds 20-30 Kts
    • Sea: 1 meter swells
    • Temperature Low 7oC, High 9oC
  • Saturday January 14:
    • Slight Overcast with mostly sunny periods during the day
    • Wind: E/NE 10-20 kts
    • Sea:  calm to 1 meter waves
    • Temperature Low 6oC, High 10oC

 

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

January 17th Census

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Looking South from to the Lighthouse towards the Elwha.

Weather: Overcast morning, with a sunny afternoon. Winds 15-25knots. Big storm on January 11th that blew our doors and windows open.

Visitors/Traffic: After a week of no visitors we got 4 boats today: a whale whatching boat, 2 small fishing boats and a yellow sailboat that was very interested in getting in close to the jetty.

Ecological Notes: Immediately after the last birth a new female showed up on the island (January 11th). Cheermeister’s mom left him on January 12th (21 days of nursing) after making with the Beachmaster 76 times over 3 days. I didn’t inspect every event, so the total could higher than that, but it was an impressive feat. The Beachmaster has shown no interest in any of the other females. There are still 2 large males on the island, with the Beachmaster (previously referred to as Bernard) staying with the females and the other male hanging out around our compost.

The new seal gave birth last night, bringing our total seal pups to 4!

Jocelyn gave birth to her pup last night with lots of shouting and fanfare.

Elephant Seal flippers look so ridiculous when they’re born, just oversized and floppy. Kinda like puppy paws.

Tons of eagles on the island this morning, which usually coincides with a reduction in other birds counted.

Cheermeister: fat and alone. I don’t understand how he still gets fatter after being weaned.

The Beachmaster checking if anyone is interested in mating yet.

Census:

Gulls: 136

Cormorants: 360

Eagles: 40

Turnstones: 13

Elephant Seals: 9 [2 bulls, 3 females, 4 pups]

Steller Sea Lions: 142

California Sea Lions: 155

Harbour Seals: 6

 

Peace descends over the nursery. Seriously though, Elephant Seals are soooo loud.

Bonham over drumming next to the compost where the Beachmaster can’t find him.

Fourth Elephant Seal Pup

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Wind: yesterday 1-21 knots varying directions mostly N, today 0-24 knots swinging around N to N
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today up to 2 m swell
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: both days mixture of sun, clouds and rain
Temperature: yesterday 7 to 9 °C, today 8 to 9 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.25 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The elephant seal harem has a new addition. In the early afternoon yesterday, another pup was born. Since December 29, there have been four births, which is a record for an elephant seal pupping season on Race Rocks. Unfortunately, only about half of pups tend to survive, due to aggression from other elephant seals, learning to nurse, weaning and predation.

There were three visitors yesterday to do some maintenance on the desalinator: Greg, Warren and Cole. Warren and Cole got a once in lifetime opportunity to see the elephant seal birth. They were walking from the desalinator building to the main house, when Warren noticed the pregnant seal had more flippers than usual. Within less than a minute, the female slid up a grassy incline and out popped the pup. It seems like she used gravity to her advantage. All the humans went into the house, so as not to disturb the seals. The new mother vocalized with the pup and the pup wriggled around. The pup appeared larger than the other three at birth. Perhaps it is a male, as male pups tend to be larger than female pups.

What followed next was difficult to watch. Just ten minutes after the pup was born, it was attacked by another mother. The elephant seal mother that gave birth to the third pup, tossed around and bit the new pup, drawing blood between the eyes and on the head. After a few attacks and several minutes passing, the new mother appeared to intervene and put itself between the aggressive seal and her pup. The mother that gave birth to the second pup also appeared to intervene, by approaching and also putting itself in the middle. Out of the five adults in the harem, the third mother was the only one that showed aggression towards the new pup.

Today, Alex and Greg visited for a couple hours in the middle of the day to problem solve a power issue that presented itself yesterday. It’s great to have a lot of people on land supporting the various off grid systems on Race Rocks.

Here are a few photos from the past two days of the flora and fauna on Race Rocks:

A Third Elephant Seal Pup is Born

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Overnight a third elephant seal pup was born to the mother who arrived at Race Rocks on Monday, January 6. On the lawn in front of the house, there are now three pups hanging out with their mothers, a pregnant female and the alpha male.

Another Elephant Seal Birth

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Wind: yesterday 2-19 knots NE, today 1-46 knots NE shifting to W
Sea State: yesterday 3 m waves from NE, today 2 m waves from W
Visibility: 10 NM
Sky: both days overcast with patches of sun and rain
Temperature: 6-8 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.54 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Yesterday morning in the rain, I started pressure washing the slime covered stairs up to the door of the lighthouse. They were getting a bit treacherous on a wet and windy day. A second tank of water later, it was sunny and the 18 stairs as well as entryway were clean.

The past two nights have been louder than usual, with the elephant seal bellows and barks dominating the soundscape of waves, wind and sea lion barks. I was surprised to not see a new pup yesterday morning, after all the carrying on outside my windows all night. This morning, the light brought a delightful sight of a new pup. Once again, the eagles, black turnstones and gulls all made quick work of getting rid of the placenta and umbilical cord. The new mother had arrived at Race Rocks on January 3. The other pup looks huge compared the new pup. It’s amazing how much weight the older pup has gained in two weeks. The three females appeared to be at odds with each other for most of the day, with lots of bellowing and chomping. If the remaining pregnant female sticks to the pattern, she should give birth on Tuesday, which is nine days after she arrived on the island.

See the photos and videos below for some sights and sounds of the past two days.

Video from yesterday afternoon of a chorus of elephant seal bellowing:

Video of the new pup inching towards its mother:

Elephant Seal Pup

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At some point overnight, an elephant seal was born. The pup is moving around and appears be trying to figure out how to nurse.

4th e-seal pup this season

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Ecological

  • The female elephant seal that hauled out yesterday onto Great Race gave birth overnight on the lawn between the science centre and the desalinator bunker.  The pup looks big and healthy.  Several birds have been sneaking in to snack on the placenta and umbilical cord.  Also the amniotic sac was visible on the lawn nearby.  The mother has what appears to be a pale green flipper tag with very worn out ID numbers. ( greenish- tag # 5928)
  • Chunk was more interested in mating than in checking out the new pup.
  • A west wind picked up over the day up to 40 knots in the evening gusting close to 50 knots with heavy raiin.

Maintenance

  • Month end reporting
  • Cleaning, packing, tidying for shift end.

Elephant Seal Birth Videos 3- wide angle

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This 3 minute video shows the birth at a wide angle taken on a gopro camera mounted on top of the bunker/desalinator building.  The camera is in a weatherproof housing so the sound is not very good.

At 0:45 the pup is out
At 1:40 Chunk starts climbing over the pathway
And at 2:27 Chunk comes in contact with the pup

Other birth videos:

See Elephant Seal Birth part 1- start and end of birth
See Elephant Seal Birth part 2
See Elephant Seal Birth part 3 wide angle
See Elephant Seal Birth part 4

Mother and pup vocalizations