Tag Archives: pup

week in review

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I have missed a few days of logs; I was off the island Jan 22-26th. The day after I returned a inverter quit and we lost power to the main house, the internet connection was also interrupted a few days… we are now mostly moved in to the other house and are running ok with only 2 inverters on the island. Planning on having the bad inverter removed on Monday and shipped to Vancouver for servicing. We can still get power there by flipping transfer switch load 1 to “generator” while the generator is running

The weather has been very nice the last two days, sunny and relatively light wind. This house has more south facing exposure and is a bit smaller, it really warms up on a sunny day. We had quite a bit of rain earlier in the week and several days of patchy fog last weekend and early this week. Wind only got up to around 30 knots one evening mid-week.

The pup has really put on weight and is quite the squawker, often right outside the bedroom window… in the middle of the night. Chunk and Bertha are mating. He is quite persistent and she seems quite resistant but she wont leave her pup alone yet. This morning there was blood around her bad eye and it was swollen.

There has been ongoing blasting at Rocky Point this week, every day up to the weekend. One time several blasts were in short succession, sometimes there were flares too. The photo below was taken after one very heavy blast, the sealions all had their heads up right after and seemed alarmed.

heads up sealions-7339
Traffic in reserve:
Sunday Jan 26: I returned in the afternoon on the station whaler.
Monday Jan 27: 1 private, 1 ecotour, helicopter overhead, several navy ships doing exercises nearby in the straight.
Saturday Feb 1: 1 diveboat, 3 ecotour.

Work:
-troubleshooting inverter
-troubleshooting internet
-moving supplies over to other house, switching fridges, etc
-communicating with inverter repair person in vancovuer
-communicating with electrician for inverter removal
-removed 25 ft of 2″ clogged drain pipe from main house, cleaned pipes with rain water
-got crate for 2′ long inverter
-started month end inventory/report
-cut, chopped, stacked fire wood
-cleaned panels as needed
-picked up pipe and hardware for replacing sink drain pipe
-topping up batteries
-picked up parts for repairs on station whaler

Elephant Seal Pup up to the Third week.

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Pictures taken from birth on January 14 to February 1 from the Remote Camera 1

Elephant Seal Pup …putting on weight !

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It has been very foggy yesterday so missed seeing the elephant seal pup. I was surprised to see this morning the size he has attained. At 13 days old, gaining  4.5 kg or 10 lbs per day , the pup would have gained  58.5kg or 130 lbs since birth.

At birth pups weigh 75 pounds (35 kg) or more and are about four feet (1.25 m) in length.  This figure comes from research done in California. No one has yet done research for recording  the growth rates for elephant seal pups at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.

The pups nurse for about 28 days, generally gaining about 10 lbs (4.5 kg) a day.

elephant seal pup2014-01-26 at 10.28.40 AM

Every morning they are in a different location because the pursues the female the previous night.

I took the following pictures from the Remote Camera 1:

elephant seal pup 2014-01-26 at 10.41.50 AM

Note the dark patches on Berthas breast are the locations on nipples.

jan262014pup1

Both mother and pup still sleeping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A good source of scientific data on Elephant seal growth rates and survivorship  can be found in a 1994 publication : Le Boeuf, Burney J., and Richard M. Laws, editors Elephant Seals: Population Ecology, Behavior, and Physiology. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1994 1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft7b69p131/

Birds Cleaning up Afterbirth of the Elephant Seal.

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Nothing goes wasted in an ecological system. A few hours after the birth of the baby elephant seal, Thayer’s Gulls, Ravens and Black Turnstones came by to get a bit of rich protein for the placenta.

Early morning of the Birth of the Elephant Seal

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In the early morning just after the birth of the Elephant seal pup, Alex was able to record behaviours of the mother and Pup. Gulls started to go after the placenta, opposed by the mother.
This video was made from clips taken between 0814 hours and 0830 hours.

Shooting the Elephant seal Images

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Alex uses a Pro-cam video camera at Race Rocks to take video and some still images  of the Elephant seals close up. In this sequence, taken on the day after the birth of the elephant seal. He places the camera and then leaves, capturing an interesting sequence as the pup tries to find milk and the Male “Chunk” starts to get aggressive. Click on the small icon in the lower right for a full screen image

Family has relocated on Great Race Rocks

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Bertha has certainly been cooperating this year in remaining in view on at least one of the cameras at Race Rocks. On this bright sunny day she is on the rocks over behind the boathouse with the Pup.

sunshine! 2014-01-20 at 1.24PM

Pup and Bertha from Remote camera 1 on the top of the Lighthouse.

Chunk2014-01-20 PM

Today its the first day that Chunk has stayed out on the middle islands with another female.

 

Vocalization of Elephant Seal Mother and Pup

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Vocalization of mother and pup are essential shortly after the birth of an elephant seal to  establish a bond and for recognition of each other if separated in the pupping colony. The first video was taken on the afternoon of January 14, day 1 the pup can be seen looking for food, but she had not started to nurse yet., The second  video was taken on the evening of January 14,  2014 the day the elephant seal was born at  Race Rocks.

Videos by the Ecoguardian, Alex Fletcher.

 

 

kayak disturbance, tagged e-seals, pup, etc

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Wind has varied between W and NE less than 20 NMPH over the past few days.  We have had some patches of fog during the week and partly clear skies today and yesterday.

On the 15th a group of 20 kayakers passed through the reserve on the East side heading West.  They passed on both sides of East rock and caused one of the largest sea lion disturbances I have seen here, several hundred sealions scrambled into the water.  I was able to talk to one of the kayakers as they passed by the south side and told him that they are not allowed to cause this kind of disturbance to marine mammals at race rocks. Though I love kayaking and prefer kayaks to motorized vessels, kayakers need to realize that because they are so nice and silent they can also easily surprise wildlife.  Once startled sealions stampede and can easily trample younger sealions or injure themselves rushing over the jagged rocks.

1 dive boat in the reserve today, 1 eco tour in the afternoon, 1 sports fishing boat in the morning which traveled too close to sealions on the East rocks. I called Pedder Bay Marina and gave them the ID number and a description and asked them to talk to the operator about regulations at Race Rocks (thanks Pedder Bay Marina!).

The elephant seal pup seems to be in good shape and is drinking milk regularly. Chunk seems fairly well behaved, a few times a day he we will arise from his slumber and chase after Bertha. Sometimes it seems he is trying to separate her from the pup and restrain her. I have seen him with his mouth around the pup’s head as well as with the pup partly underneath him though on all occasions I have observed he has clearly not harmed the pup when he easily could have. Chunk went off the island last night, I assume to middle rock and was back in the morning. There are two elephant seals on middle rock, both fairly large, one possibly a young male. I have been hearing what sounds like a male’s call coming from middle rock today. There were also two smaller scruffy, moulting female elephant seals in the shoreline of the main island today one tagged green 7502 the other tagged pink N93_ the last number is not visible. That brings the current e-seal population to 7.

Past week maintenance:
-cleaned solar panels daily
-flushed media filter on desal
-changed pre-filters on desal
-troubleshooting cam 5 with help from Jonathan, replaced POE unit. took measurements to replace leaky cable housing at base of cam stand
-ran desal x2
-ran fire pump
-replaced leaky hydraulic line on crane, pressure tested line
-cut, chopped, stacked fire wood
-replaced fire extinguishers which had been sent in for annual servicing
-brought temporary fire extinguishers off island for servicing
-troubleshooting of failed internet system with help from Jonathan
-swapped out 1 propane tank on main house

Visitors this week:
-on the 15th Erik came with a guest to drop off supplies
-on the 16th Erik brought Jonathan out to replace switch in the tower as well as the Marine sciences class for a field trip (12 students and Ann)