More boat traffic on the nice days and there was also a dive boat with a couple divers on the east side of the island, it looked recreational
Ecological
The little steller is still around and adorable
seems like even more sea lions today but that might be because they are so concentrated around the helipad and the jetty but at least they are away from the burial cairns and the generator room/lighthouse
Maintenance
Fuel and water have been delivered recently and hopefully in the next week we get more decluttering done around the island and start bucking up some more firewood so we have enough to last the year since driftwood does take months to dry out enough to be usable
Since I got back on Tuesday there have been approximately 15 boats per day, the number varies a bit each day
On tuesday and thursday we had visitors from the eagle wing crew come for a tour on Race Rocks. It was so nice for them to be able to come check out what Race Rocks looks like from the land after seeing it from the water so many times
Greg and Guy are coming by today so we can do a more in depth orientation on the projects and maintenance going on around the island
Ecological
After my walk around I noticed a couple interesting things, first there was a young steller, not a baby but he was still nursing.
Then an elephant seal, which was so nice to see and it had a green tag on it. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera it was already gone.
There have also been humpbacks nearby lately, the past two days there have been 4. Yesterday when the eagle wing crew was here was saw a fishing boat getting way to close to the whales, the whales were clearly upset and one jumped right out of the water because of it. Luckily we saw one of the whale watching boats from BC tours and got a hold of them and they let us know they had a word with the fishing boat about keeping its distance from the animals.
Maintenance
The fence still needs to be repaired twice a day but the sea lions are starting to stay away from the entrance to the generator room with regular clearing which will also start happening around the burial cairns between the student house and the helicopter pad. The sea lions have started shifting the stones around a lot and we want to preserve this important historic area.
We received a response from the scientists who had tagged the elephant seal mentioned and pictured in this previous post. They were able to share some interesting information about GE103, whom we nicknamed Eric. GE103 was part of a mother and pup interaction study, as well as the subject of a blubber biopsy study.
“Eric”, GE103
Juliette Linossier, a researcher working under a Fyssen grant at UC Santa Cruz/Año Nuevo Reserve, was able to tell us more about the early life of this animal and others. She told us that shortly after the birth of another elephant seal (GE338), there was a huge storm at Año Nuevo and GE338 was separated from it’s mother. The pup was stuck on the beach, and his mother in an protected elevated area. They called to each other for a long while, but were never able to return to each other. GE338 did survive but was nursed by another female in the colony.
The now ’empty nest’ mother of GE338 became attached to GE103! She nursed him, and stayed close to him and his mother, G9474. Thus, GE103 (or as we call him, Eric) was able to take advantage of more than one milk source as a pup; the two mothers even fought over him from time to time.
According to her bio, Juliette wants to investigate the link between allonursing and maternal cognitive abilities using new approaches. Using time-lapse photography, chemical profiles and other techniques she plans to look at variables such as maternal age, pup similarity, genetic connection, spacial proximity and more to further understand what drives allonursing in these interesting creatures. Thanks for sharing, Juliette!
GE103’s blubber biopsies were taken for the purpose of furthering the understanding of pollutants bioaccumulating in marine mammals. Read more about this subject here.
Many thanks to Patrick Robinson, director of Año Nuevo Reserve and lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, for helping us learn more about this work.
We left Race Rocks last Monday (October 30th), and hours before leaving we were surprised by the landing of a Bell 412EPI Coast Guard helicopter. They came to Race Rocks in order to replace the solar battery bank beside the foghorn (near the base of the lighthouse). We were able to get great video of them landing as well as taking off!
Unfortunately, as one can see at the left of the video the landing scared many sea lions off of the rock in a rush. Without knowing that they were coming we had no chance to gently move any vulnerable animals away from the helicopter pad. We were able to speak with someone at the college about this, and the Coast Guard will hopefully be able to better work with Race Rocks in the future to ensure the safety and comfort of the animals.
The pilot was kind enough to take a moment to show us around and allow us to take some pictures. He explained that a smaller helicopter could have been landed near the house, but the 412EPI’s cargo capacity (over 6000lbs) was needed to transport the batteries. The helicopter is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6T-9 turboshaft engine that makes over 2000hp (about 1500kW), and it’s made in Canada!
Loading old batteries into the helicopter.
Fresh batteries getting installed.
That’s not your regular engine!
We enjoyed our time at Race Rocks (a big thanks to everyone who supported us during our term), and hope to return and continue this work protecting and observing the fragile ecosystems and the animals within. Until next time!
A lot of tour boats around today in this beautiful weather, although not much traffic on those last couple windy days we had
Maintenance
A couple new goose nests popped up so those have been taken care of although there are about 3 nests that were too far along to addle and two of nests have hatched, the third one will hatch any day now and we expect that to be the last of the nests that will hatch this season
Ecological
My baby Nemo left this morning, it was definitely past the date we had expected him to leave elephant seals don’t typically stick around past 3 months of age but he had been here for almost 4 months, elephant seal pups also typically leave together when they are born in the same rookery but these two left weeks apart.
Still 12 elephant seals around going through the molting process, a couple of them have completed molting
the pigeon guillemots are here today
I heard there might be two otters out in the north kelp patch now but have not confirmed
Also saw a humpback yesterday, first one I’ve seen in a while
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
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
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
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
