Tag Archives: elephant seals

Elephant Seals

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-30 knots SW throughout the day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: very rough

Boats/Visitors

  • No boat traffic today and no visitors

Ecological

  • Bernard, the dominant male elephant seal, continues to protect the two pups by scaring off the other males from trying to mate with the pups or kill them. It is surprising and unusual behaviour for a male elephant seal but I am grateful for his protection!
  • The elephant seal pups enjoyed a splash in their first puddle today. They should be ready to head into the ocean sometime in the next few weeks.

 

Persistent Male

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10-15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-40 knots SW throughout the day
  • Sky: cloudy with sunny periods
  • Water: very rough

Boats/Visitors

  • No boat traffic today and no visitors

Ecological

  • Still trying to figure out what Bernard, the dominant male elephant seal, is up to with the pups. Some days he protects them against other males and will sleep close to them throughout the day, and other days he is either just gone or will sleep away from them while other males attack them and fight over them with each other. Today he decided to defend them against a smaller but very persistent male that has been harassing them the most. Nonetheless the pups are doing well and seem unharmed.

Peaceful Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 N/NE, picked up to 25-40 knots SW overnight
  • Sky: sunny and clear
  • Water: mostly calm, choppy at times

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw two ecotour boats go by
  • No visitors

Ecological

  • The pups were left alone last night and today, thankfully. Had a peaceful day of sleeping in the sun and recovering from being attacked several times over the last few days.
  • The male elephant seals all kept to themselves today.

Fighting Males and Surviving Pups

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 N/NE, picked up to 20-30 knots overnight
  • Sky: cloudy with light snowfall and fog
  • Water: large rolling swells throughout the day

Boats/Visitors

  • Didn’t notice any ecotour boats or divers around today
  • No visitors

Ecological

  • Woke up at 4:30 am to the sound of the elephant seal pups being attacked by a big male elephant seal. Pretty sure it was Bernard, their father, but hard to tell. Was surprised to find both pups seemingly unharmed and sleeping peacefully in the morning when I got up.
  • One of the younger, smaller males took the opportunity to try to mate with one pup while two of the bigger males were fighting, but luckily she got away from him after a few minutes of panic. Very difficult to watch I must say. These males are all fired up from the mating season and most don’t get a chance to mate, especially if they are smaller in size.
  • Saw about 10-20 Pigeon Guillemots chasing each other and diving into the water.

Census & Independent Pups

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 1-10 knots N/SW
  • Sky: sunny and clear
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Didn’t notice any ecotours go by today
  • No visitors

Ecological

  • Bernard left the two pups today, not sure if he’ll return or not.
  • The pups are almost the same size now. Both are nice and plump and seem healthy.
  • Lots of Black Oyster Catchers and Cormorants around lately

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 85
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 60
  • Elephant Seals – 5 (two pups, three adult males)
  • Harbour Seals – 5
  • Cormorants – 200
  • Seagulls – 150
  • Bald Eagles – 5
  • Black Oyster Catchers – 15
  • Black Turnstones – 10

Census August 31st

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The island has began a shift in population recently, with the adolescent gulls beginning to take flight and hunting on their own the population itself seems to be thinning out. We have some new visitors out this way with some canadian geese calling race rocks there home or maybe just a short term vacation spot. Lately the #’s of sea lions have been increasing steadily in the previous week, with the lions taking advantage of the grassy sections farther inland from the rocky coast.

Stellar Sea Lions – 175

Californian Sea Lions- 73

Elephant Seals- 3

200 Gulls

50 Adolescent gulls

30 Canadian Geese

20 Oyster Catchers

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Weather

Windy day from East between 25 and 30 knots,Sea choppy .Overcast and foggy sporadically . Some snow around 9:00AM but finally sunny the rest of the day. Sea water : 5.5 degrees and Air at 2.1 degrees celsius(at 8:00 AM)

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Ecological

The night between the 6th and 7th February has been a very busy one for the elephants seals . We found tracks and it looked like the male helped the young one to come back from the rocky place where  he has been for at least 2 days. He went during the day from the tower to the water shed and at the corner of the paths and closed to the water sampling house :a lot for him if we considered that he has been almost always sedentary before his Mum ‘s departure…Chunk was back too but stayed in its own quarters .DSC_0824DSC_0700DSC_0735

Vessels 

No boats

Orcas, Penis, Helicopter

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Ecological

  • Elephant seals: Chunk has appeared to be trying to mate since before the pups were born but today it was the first time I have observed successful copulation with the mother of first pup.  In the photos he seemed keen to go again but she didn’t seem very interested.
  • Orcas: what appeared to be a family of 4 orcas passed through race passage in the morning heading East.  A “Whale Research” vessel can be seen in the photo following them.
  • Fishing: several sports fishing boats with buoys were around the reserve today,  a sure sign that the halibut fishery has reopened for the season.

Other:

  • took measurements for camera mounting housing and hardware
  • Coast Guard Helicopter pilot Captain David Ferguson paid a visit to Race Rocks with 2 crew to do routine maintenance on the light and fog signal.  They came in one of the Coast Guard’s new, shiny Bell 429 machines, which apparently cost about 8.3 Million dollars apiece.

battery maintenance

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Ecological:

  • wind south 10-15 becoming south west 15-20
  • Chuckles came back onto the main island overnight, Chunk keeps him away from the females and pups.

Vessels: 4 eco tour. One appeared to be getting too close to sealions on the South rocks and harbour seals on West rock.  We went off island for a couple hours and returned in the afternoon.

Maintenance:

  • topped up deionized water in battery bank, cleaned batteries and started applying anti-oxidation compound.
  • ongoing training of new guardian on island systems and procedures.

Second large female e-seal

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Ecological:

  • Wind SE 25-30 knots becoming light in the evening.
  • 16 Green Winged Teals were in the mud flats NE of main house.
  • An unusual bald eagle with a damaged beak was on and around the island throughout the day, quite close to the main house at first.
  • Before dusk a second large, pregnant looking female elephant seal was near the jetty and had hauled out up beside boat house just after dark.

Vessels

  • 3 ecotour

Maintenance

  • Cleared ramp
  • Sharpened chainsaw, cut and chopped firewood.